


The Man Behind the Curtain

by DJWillyShakes



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcoholic Tony Stark, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Apocalypse, Army Steve, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Evil Technology, F/M, Gen, Hurt Tony, Hurt/Comfort, Killer Robots, M/M, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Robotics, Technology, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony makes a big mistake, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-14 15:11:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4569216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJWillyShakes/pseuds/DJWillyShakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In July 2050, Stark Industries reached a new milestone in technological innovation by releasing a new kind of wearable tech: the kind that reduces the user to a mindless slave. Since that horrible PR development, their normally limelight-loving CEO has disappeared from the public eye--not that there are enough people left to constitute the public eye, anyway. Despite horrible losses, Captain Steve Rogers pushes through a deserted wasteland populated by hostile...inhabitants, to save what remains of his friend, his country, and possibly even the man who destroyed it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Scavenger

            _Well, that’ll be the day_

_When you say goodbye_

_Yes, that’ll be the day_

_When you make me cry_

_Aw, you say you’re gonna leave_

_You know it’s a lie_

_‘Cause that’ll be the day_

_When I die_

Steve groaned. Rolled over, the broken rocks crunching under his back. The alarm clock was across the room, by Sam, twiddling away at a hundred-year-old song and blinking its little green light to cut through the darkness. It was an hour before dawn, and the warehouse was freezing. He didn’t want to get out of the sleeping bag, if he could help it. Steve felt around on the concrete floor for something harmless to throw, pawing over his shield, backpack, and med kit before settling on a boot. He flung it at Sam’s sleeping form, missing by a mile but managing to hit the wall hard enough to echo through the base.

            “Jesus _Christ_!” Sam sat bolt upright, and Steve heard the click of a pistol through the alarm clock’s wailing. The song stopped. Sam found the boot a second later and audibly relaxed. “G’morning, Cap.”

            Steve caught the boot before it flew past him. “Morning, Falcon.”

            They didn’t speak again until they were on the road. Steve got up, pulled on a few layers, and started packing the supplies. Sam got up, pulled on a few layers, and went around with the lantern, waking Clint and the girls. When packs were all fastened, holsters all strapped on, and hoods all thrown up, the beginnings of daylight were greying the sky. Steve held back the heavy black tarp and watched his team squeeze out the crack in the concrete walls, one by one. They trudged down the main road, single file for now, and utterly silent. They knew now not to look too long at the blinking red lights from the buildings that were still well-kept, and they knew now not to speak.

            Once they passed out of the city limits, though, the line changed abruptly. Darcy scooted forward to walk with Sam, and they pointed out things in the countryside to each other, riffing on the variety of car overturned in the ditch, wondering about the species of bird pecking out the eyes of an otherwise-desiccated corpse. Clint sang at the top of his lungs, and Nat hung back to be his audience of one. Steve stayed in front, alone and silent.

            They walked a few miles. Sam tapped his shoulder after the fifth exit sign, while Clint and Darcy shredded a cover of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” behind them. “You okay, big guy?”

            Steve nodded. Sam asked him the same thing almost every four hours. “I’m fine. I wasn’t the one who did all the talking, remember?”

            Sam dropped back, but his eyes, still concerned, never left Steve’s back.

            “That’s ten,” Nat called from the back of the line.

            They stopped by some chunks of overpass. Clint built a fire behind the biggest one, out of the wind. Darcy untied the big pot from her pack and picked two cans at random to pour into it. Chicken and corn. Steve took his and sat on a diamond-shaped hunk of concrete, watching his team eat. Nat came to sit beside him.

            “You need to eat.”

            Steve sighed. “I know.”

            “So eat.”

            To appease her, he took a bite. He missed spices.

            “Captain.”

            He looked down at her.

            Nat raised her eyebrows, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. “We need to find a more permanent solution.”

            Steve shook his head. “We’re going to New York. It’s only another day or two, at this point. Once we get to Jersey, we can use the train tracks, and--”

            “No.” She looked stricken, staring down at her bowl. “No. It’s too dangerous.”

            “In and out, Widow,” he protested. “I know exactly where to go--”

            “No!” She so rarely raised her voice. He jumped. Sam looked over from the fire. Nat set down her bowl, wrapping her arms around herself and staring at the ground. “It won’t be that easy. You know it won’t. Risking your own life is one thing, but you’re asking everyone here to risk death or worse on a pointless mission—”

            “It’s not pointless,” Steve mumbled, shrinking into his leather jacket.

            “Yes, it is.” Her mouth was a hard line, and her nails dug into the heavy nylon of her coat. “You’re not the only one who misses him, Cap. But there’s nothing we can do.”

            “Maybe you’re right.” His chest felt tight. “I’m sorry, Widow. I have to try.”

            She was quiet for a long time. “Fine. Then you’re on your own.” Nat stood up, gathering her bowl and stalking back to the fire.

            “What’d he say?” Clint wanted to know, stirring the leftovers in the pot to boil off the excess water.

            “We’re settling,” Nat replied. Over the flames, her eyes met Steve’s, daring him to argue. “For good, this time.”

            “Really?” Darcy asked, brightening.

            “Really?” Clint asked, suspicious.

            Nat nodded, unfolding the map and circling a small dot with her finger. “Franklin Township. It’s not metropolitan at all, so it should be deserted. There are houses, canals for fishing, and it’s on high enough ground to keep ourselves fortified.”

            “So...what, we’re just gonna live there?” Sam asked, wrinkling his nose. “In _Jersey_?”

            Steve turned away from the fire.

 

            From the moment they kicked dirt on the fire, the township was all anyone could talk about.

            “I want the school,” Darcy was saying. “When I was little, I always wanted to stay overnight in school. I dunno why. But I’m gonna.”

            “It’s better we all stay together,” Clint pointed out. He had out a tiny screwdriver, and was calibrating his electric arrowheads as they walked. “Or close. At least at first. Can’t use the airwaves anymore. If, for some reason, we get company, that way nobody gets cornered. They’re programmed to divide and conquer, y’know.”

            “We could make it a safe place,” Sam mused. “So other survivors have somewhere to strive for. A lotta people are still lost, and even if we save one or two from assimilation…”

            Nat frowned. “More people makes us more likely to draw attention.”

            “But then we’re that many people stronger,” he reminded her.

            Steve watched his boots as he trudged in front.

            “Does this mean we can stop using the code names?” Darcy wanted to know. “I’m sick of Hawkeye making ivy jokes.”

            “I guess as long as we’re sure there’s no surveillance.” Nat shrugged. “But you should know, Princeton, just because you take away his material, doesn’t mean Hawk’ll stop making stupid jokes.”

            Clint snorted. “Somebody’s got to have a sense of humour around here. Between you and Captain Mopes-A-Lot, it’s all I can do to keep the whole team from falling into crippling depression.”

            She rolled her eyes. “How noble of you.”

            “You bet your ass.” Proudly, he tweaked with the wires inside his arrowhead, producing a few sparks. “And I gotta do it all myself, now that we’re missing—OOF!”

            Nat punched him square in the stomach, scowling. “Quit while you’re ahead.”

            Darcy skipped up to the front of the line. “What made you pick Franklin, Cap?”

            Steve swallowed, not looking at her. “It’s, uh, the canals. They have fish in them. And it’s probably not bugged, like Widow said.”

            “Have you ever been there before?”

            “Yeah...on a...field trip.” He was a terrible liar.

            Darcy cocked an eyebrow. “How long ago was this?”

            “High school,” he mumbled. “I don’t really remember.” Sensing his discomfort, she backed off, for which he was eternally grateful.

            They followed the highway signs to Franklin’s foot. The sun was just beginning to set. Nat took a vote, whether they should check out the township right away, or wait until morning, when they could check for surveillance. Darcy was the only one excitable enough to want to head straight into town, so they set up camp a half-mile from the edge of Franklin, in an abandoned deer blind. It was cramped quarters, but it was at least safe--devoid of anything with even a wall plug, let alone anything that could send a transmission. No one noticed, during dinner, that Steve set up his sleeping bag closest to the door or neglected to unpack his backpack. He offered to take first watch, but Nat pushed him to second-last. “You’re going on a suicide mission,” she whispered while Sam presented what he remembered of his twelfth-grade forensics piece over the fire. “But in the event you actually have a chance of succeeding...you’ll want to have a couple hours of sleep.”

            So when Clint nudged him awake at four hours to dawn, Steve sat up and watched--not the surrounding forest, but the chest of the marksman whose watch he’d taken over. When Clint’s breathing became slow and regular, he reached over the archer’s limp body to shake Nat. She said nothing, only nodded at him and took up the night-vision goggles, pushing something into his hand. Steve squinted. They were Sam’s spare goggles, offering both night- and heat-vision. He slipped them on but frowned.

            “If you think I’m going to die,” he whispered, “you shouldn’t waste extra supplies on me.”

            “Then don’t die,” she hissed back. It was hard to tell in shades of green, but she looked about to cry. Nat looked away, and he could barely hear her. “Bring him back.”

            Steve nodded. “I’ll do my best.” Flipping up his hood, he rolled up his sleeping bag and slipped out into the dark woods.


	2. Survivor

            _Army personnel patrolled the streets. They’d dug out the old desert phones from 2010, the ones that fed off towers instead of privately-owned satellites. Their orders were simple: close off the cities; scan everyone; quarantine the positives; evacuate everyone else._

_Steve was high-up enough to avoid evacuation duty. He held down the base in San Antonio, the underground bunker hastily opened for its conveniently low-tech accommodations. He was also high-up enough to know what was going on._

_Stark Industries owned the developed world, and was responsible for much of the development everywhere else. They released the ultimate in wearable tech, putting their previous innovations in glasses and later contacts to shame. Other companies were working on neural implants, with cameras to be surgically placed behind the user’s eye, but that was too messy for SI. Quick, clean, and affordable, their answer to the EyePhone and Google Blink came in a fine red powder in a sleek silver case._

_Once inhaled, the nanobots only needed about a day to adjust to the user’s brainwaves and learn the cues. Then, they flowed (painlessly, the ads promised) to their places on the major optic and auditory nerves. The user could plug into the internet, make their screen as big or as small as needed, send messages, read books, watch movies, place calls, all with a simple thought. The nanobots came equipped with artificial intelligence that could be named and personalized, but they had limits in their code that prevented them from crossing the blood-brain barrier, keeping them safely out of anywhere they could do damage._

_The nanobot packs were selling like hotcakes. Estimated eighteen million users in the US alone, almost a billion worldwide in the first few weeks of release. At the start of the fourth week, Stark Industries released a downloadable patch to update the nanobots’ OS. That was where everything went wrong._

_The video quality increased a little, but the nanobots’ code was rewritten. The first documented case of blood-brain infiltration was Margaret Lewell, a college professor, who, in the middle of pulling up her video lecture, stopped hearing her AI and started speaking for it. She didn’t become violent, but she did go to tech support, where a quick scan revealed her ‘bots were running through her frontal lobe. The second documented case was a young entrepreneur presenting his company to investors. He punched through the projection screen, breaking half the bones in his hand, before attacking the board of investors. Motor cortex and amygdala._

_After the second case, it seemed the whole world was under fire. One billion users worldwide were infected with intelligent, hive-minded nanobots. They were quarantined in major cities: Beijing, Los Angeles, Paris, New York. The unaffected were evacuated to smaller towns. If they requested, they could be moved to underground military bunkers, and kept in protective custody._

_Nearly a million people in south Texas requested the base in San Antonio. Steve had to tell ninety percent of them to leave, to relax, that they’d be safe in the hotels in Northcliff and Floresville. Later, he cursed himself for lying to nine hundred thousand people._

_Bucky had been evacuating the city of San Antonio. He wasn’t nearly as good at saying no as Steve was. Even after they’d given the order to stop bringing people below, he snuck in his girlfriend and a cluster of her friends, promising them they could stay in the private barracks. Which happened to be Steve’s quarters. “C’mon,” he’d said, with that infectious grin, arm around the curly-haired redhead who seemed to want nothing to do with him. “It’s just a couple people, Captain Goody-Goody. And besides--she might be ‘the one’.” He’d mouthed the last words, but the girl rolled her eyes all the same._

_Steve caved. He had enough to worry about. And Bucky was good at calming people down. It was better to appease him than have him doing everything in his power to annoy Steve into compliance. “Fine. Go down a level and hand out blankets.”_

_“Aye, aye, Captain.” A quick salute and he was gone._

_“Thanks for letting us stay,” the girlfriend had said after he left._

_“Not a problem, ma’am.” Steve was tired. He was about to be a lot more so. “Captain Steve Rogers. If he didn’t say.”_

_She held out her hand to shake. “He didn’t. I’m Natasha.”_

 

            It was a fifteen-hour walk from Franklin to New York. Steve stopped every few miles and took catnaps, no more than two hours each, in the tiniest, most guarded nooks and crannies he could find. He didn’t want to be caught off-guard, alone, in the middle of the night. When he came to the mouth of the Holland Tunnel, he stopped to catch his breath. The bright red QUARANTINE barriers were tipped over and gathering rust. From the minute he popped out on the other end of the tunnel, he’d have to be utterly silent and keep his head down as much as possible. A/V channels and tiny cameras ran all over the city. Voice and retina recognition would out him immediately as a survivor, and they would be on him. One wrong breath, and he’d be assimilated, a slave to the artificial intelligence piloting his brain, and he’d never complete his mission.

            Steve considered screaming or at least talking for a while, just to get it out of his system before he no longer had the option, but he couldn’t muster the impulse. So he put his head down and started into the tunnel.

            He had grown up in Brooklyn. His entire life, before the army, had been New York City. To see its streets empty was a shock that hit in the pit of his stomach. He wandered through the lines of abandoned cars, some looted or stripped, some overturned or damaged, pulling out his map as he went.

            The “infected”, as the media had liked to call them, had two primary directives: assimilation of uncontrolled humans, and self-improvement. Those that carried the nanobots knew how to produce doses of the same, so they staked out towns and cities searching for survivors. Those that didn’t, those that were enslaved by a different kind of Stark tech, whatever it may be, were tasked with keeping tabs on the Rovers, sending them new directives, and making sure they were always in working order. Rovers were constantly upgrading themselves, and they needed multiple hands to do it, so they tended to travel in packs of three or four. They were mutilated, ungainly things, with various homemade cybernetic pieces. Passing through Carthage, Mississippi, Steve had seen one with four robotic limbs and a wicked metal jaw. In Millboro, Virginia, they’d encountered one that looked completely human, until it tried to assimilate Sam. After Clint took it down, they’d discovered its entire skeleton and half its organs were mechanical. Unbounded by the human self-preservation mechanism, the only thing that really stopped Rovers was brain-death, though a good electric shock got the job done.

            Early on, Steve had subscribed to Darcy’s more humane school of thought, trying to snap less-augmented Rovers back to the people beneath the nanobots, but after one terrifying close call in Tennessee, he’d given up. Now, he kept one hand on the nail-studded baseball bat hanging from his belt--low-tech, but effective. One or two shots to the join of metal and skin was usually enough.

            All he had to do was make his way to the Chrysler building and set off a sensor. If he did it before he got there, he’d attract any Rovers in the area, which was a worse-than-death-sentence. Inside the building, however, he’d get exactly the company he wanted, and be in a position to shut down all the alarms in the city, thereby clearing his exit.

            The city was deathly quiet, except for the sounds of Steve’s boots on the asphalt. Not enough to trip a sensor, but eerie all the same. He was potentially the only autonomous creature on the entire island of Manhattan. _Soon to be one of two,_ he told himself grimly. He traipsed up West Street, melting into the silence until he reached 12th Avenue, taking a hard right. Glancing furtively over his shoulder to make sure the street behind him was clear, Steve didn’t see the half-cannibalized cab until he smacked right into it, setting off its (miraculously, still-functional) whooping alarm.

            He didn’t wait for them to come. The Chrysler building was a straight shot, ten blocks down 12th Avenue. He just ran, ditching his pack to make himself a smaller target--the Rovers wouldn’t bother with canned food and blankets, anyway--and getting his bat ready. As he ran, he unfolded the surgical mask from his pocket and slipped it on, one-handed. No chance of his taking one wrong breath.

            He had run five blocks before he realized dimly nothing seemed to be chasing him, but didn’t stop for anything to catch up. Steve sprinted the last half, banking hard onto Lexington Ave, and heading straight for the Art Deco doors shining on his right. He made to yank them open, but the polished silver bars only rattled in place. He whipped around, facing the empty street just as the taxi’s alarm gave out, cutting off sharply into pounding silence.

            No Rovers. Not even Drones. And the infected didn’t lock doors. Steve crossed the street to the headquarters of the American Heart Association and tried their doors. Locked tight. He looked up warily at the skyscrapers, searching for the blinking red lights that signified AV sensors. All the buildings were dark. New York was deserted--not just of humans, but really and truly deserted.

            “Damn,” Steve said, out loud, which struck him as funny. He hadn’t said a word around a real building in ages. His laughter bounced off the abandoned monoliths all around, the only sound for miles. He sat at a bus stop. “Dammit, dammit. _Fuck_!” Though he was safe, if the city was empty, his mission had failed. Not even that--it had been doomed from the start. “Although,” he thought out loud, because he could, “it probably was anyway.” And then, because he could, and because he felt more comfortable around vegetation than the possible threats of civilization, he went back for his supplies, then decided to walk to Central Park.

            As he strode down Lexington, the setting sun darkened all the skyscrapers to shades of black. Steve slipped on the night-vision specs, just in case, having to remind himself every few steps that it was safe to look at something other than his feet. He rounded the corner, the skyline to his right dropping sharply to the silhouettes of trees, and stopped short. At the end of 59th, the world’s tallest building loomed. He’d forgotten about the famous Stark Tower. A massive, three-thousand-foot silver eyesore, it was lined with fluted glass panels that used to flash rainbow colours, back before the engineers within had essentially ended the world. It sat with the rest of the extinguished skyline, punching a hole in the clouds with its asymmetrical peak.

            And it was lit up.

            Steve walked up to it as if in a dream. The main doors were clear glass, and he could see the lobby was empty. He tugged experimentally on the handle, and the door _whoosh_ ed open automatically. The interior was heated. Carefully, he approached the front desk, surveying every hallway he passed for signs of life--artificial or otherwise. Nothing so much as moved.

            Steve laid out his sleeping bag behind the front desk. He still wanted some cover, in case other survivors wandered into the city, or the infected, for some reason, came back. But the Tower’s heat was irresistible. He’d been sleeping in cold warehouses and humid gas stations and cold, humid, stripped-out McDonaldses for months. As he crossed in front of the elevator doors, he was surprised to see them slide open automatically.

_“Going up, sir?”_ asked a disembodied, posh voice--decidedly male, and definitely AI.

            He stiffened. So the Tower wasn’t empty after all. Never taking his eyes off the cool blue interior of the elevator, Steve inched back to his pack and slipped it on, digging a couple of Clint’s electric arrowheads from the side pocket and checking the desk for a map of the Tower. “Central processing,” he muttered, scanning over a brochure that offered about half of what he needed to know. “C’mon. Central processing...basement or penthouse?”

_“Penthouse, sir,”_ said the AI. _“Shall I take you there?”_

            There was a much more detailed map along the back of the elevator. Steve gritted his teeth, made sure his mask was tight over his face, and stood on the elevator’s threshold, trying to make out the writing, but the lift was too deep. He took a breath, gripped his bat, and stepped in.

            Instantly, the doors slid shut, the button display glowed blue, and the elevator started up, the tower’s two hundred fifty floors zipping by in flashes of white and silver. Steve could only hold on for dear life until the lift slowed and stopped, gently, at the very top. The doors glided open.

_“Penthouse, sir. Central processing. I do hope the trip was enjoyable.”_

            Steve didn’t answer. He stepped shakily out of the lift, rolling one of the arrowheads over in his hand. The room he stood in was circular, with a round pedestal at the center. It was dark, save for the gentle glow of the elevator, the walls wreathed in shadow. Except small, round blue lights shone in a perfect ring around him, fiveish feet off the ground and fiveish feet apart.

_“Shall I get the lights, sir?”_

            Knuckles white on the grip of his bat, Steve swallowed. His throat was papery, but he answered. “Sure.”

            A round fluorescent blinked on, and his heart stopped.

            There were recesses in the walls, one about every four feet. Inside were the most advanced Rovers Steve had ever seen--if they were Rovers at all. They looked to be pure androids, like the kind Stark Industries had talked about producing for years. Each was easily over six feet tall, with heavily-built hardware that mimicked bulging muscles. There was a round hole in the chest of each one, with something implanted that shone the same blue as the elevator. The faces were simple, crude, with rectangular slots for eyes and grim slits for mouths. They didn’t move, but he wasn’t going to wait for them to attack. Any one of the androids could easily tear him to pieces. Steve armed the arrowhead in his hand and prepared to throw it at the nearest one.

            “Don’t do that!”

            The voice came from over his right shoulder. He whipped around.

            An android stood in a dark doorway, the slotted eyes glowing like the hole in its chest. Steve was about to take aim when the eyelights went out and the whole thing made a noise like the air brakes of a truck. The face slid up and away, and the chest and legs cracked open from the side, dumping the battered, bedraggled form of a man onto the carpet. He struggled to his feet. He wore dirty jeans and a heavy black sweatshirt. There were dark shadows under his eyes, nearly the same colour as his scraggly stubble and wild, unwashed hair. The man limped a little closer, and Steve caught a whiff of something like cherry gasoline. Dazed, unfocused, the man all but threw himself on the nearest android, holding up his hands defensively.

            “They won’t hurt you,” he panted. “They’re just exoskeletons. No AI. I swear.”

            Guarded, Steve lowered the arrowhead, but didn’t disarm it just yet. “You’re infected.”

            “No.” The man shook his head quickly. He seemed to become a little more lucid. “No, I’m not.”

            “And why should I believe that?” Steve spat. “Who are you?”

            “Me?” The man laughed weakly, pressing his back against the wall and sliding slowly down, hands falling limply into his lap. “My name’s Tony Stark. You may have heard of me.” He laughed again, looking ruefully up at the hulking androids that lined his walls. “I’m the man who ended the world.”


	3. Shut-In

            _The codenames were Bucky’s idea. When the San Antonio base fell, the six of them were on the uppermost level, with Sam and Steve doing their best to lock all the infected below._

_“How do we get out?” Darcy was petrified, watching Clint and Natasha dig supplies out of every available cupboard using Bucky’s keys. “Where do we go?”_

_“Towns aren’t safe.” Steve passed Sam a welding torch and mask and backed off the door._

_“Nowhere’s safe!” Darcy exploded, on the verge of tears. “How do we keep them from finding us? Everything has cameras, and all the cameras belong to Stark--”_

_Bucky knelt next to her and offered a reassuring smile, squeezing her shoulder. “Every system can be beat. Metropolitan surveillance uses voice recognition and retinal scans, but the satellites use body mass and name recognition. Both need to give a match before any alarms are tripped. So keep quiet in cities and don’t use real names.” He shrugged, squeezing Darcy’s shoulder. “Easy.”_

_“Easy. Right.” Clint snorted, stacking cans of food. “That’ll be the only easy thing about this.”_

_“We can complain about it, or we can do something about it,” Steve cut in. “But if you want to live…”_

_Clint sighed. “Motion to keep calling him Captain Goody-Goody?”_

_“I second that.” Bucky nodded, picking the lock to the gun locker. Steve gave him a withering look, which he pointedly ignored. “Bucky’s not my real name, so as long as_ you _don’t slip…” He cocked an eyebrow at Natasha._

_She sniffed. “Maybe I’ll just call you Sergeant.”_

_“We could use the colleges we went to,” Darcy piped up. “I’d be Princeton.”_

_“Yeah, flaunt it,” Clint teased. “To the high-school dropout.”_

_She turned red. “Sorry.”_

_He shrugged. “On the archery team, they used to call me Hawkeye. ‘Cause I see better from a distance,” he added with a grin._

_Natasha rolled her eyes. “Or because you’re from the Hawkeye State.”_

_“I like it,” Bucky offered. “Wilson, you kinda strike me as an Eagle One type.”_

_“Nah, man.” Sam didn’t look up from his welding the door shut. “Eagles are slow. I’m like a falcon. Fast and deadly.”_

_“Falcon’s’re small,” Clint grumbled._

_“Yeah? Maybe we should call you that, then,” Sam goaded._

_“Aw, fuck you.”_

_“What about me?” Natasha asked, draping her arms around Bucky’s neck. “Since you’re the genius with nicknames, what would you call me?”_

_He grinned. “There’s a lot I’d like to call you, but…” He kissed her forehead. “I dunno.” Then her nose. “How about…” Then her lips, which went on for a while. Lips pressed to her cheek, Bucky thought for a second. “I like ‘Black Widow’. Small, but deadly.”_

_“You’re an idiot,” she teased, running her hands through his hair._

_Steve cleared his throat._

_“Oh, yeah.” Innocently, Bucky broke away from her and scooped up a backpack. “Let’s get moving, huh?”_

            “ _You’re_ Tony Stark?” Steve followed the reclusive billionaire deeper into the Tower, a little unnerved. The man had strapped on his android armour again, and it made the captain edgy.

            “Who else did you expect to find in the penthouse of Stark Tower?” The facemask gave his voice a tinny, processed quality. Steve didn’t like it.

            “At the very least, a nest of Rovers,” Steve muttered, wishing he’d brought the rest of his supplies. “At best, the Drones I was looking for.”

            “First of all, adaptoids don’t _nest_. They network.” Stark led him through once-opulent, dark hallways to a room with a killer two-hundred-seventy-degree view of New York. “And the other ones aren’t drones. They’re not remotely controlled by the nanotech. They’re just highly suggestible. Big, emotionless, cyborg babies.”

            “Oh?” While it was admittedly foolish to argue with the man who’d invented all the technology that now spread over the world like a plague, Steve found it was an effective way to deal with his aggression. He took an instant disliking to Tony Stark, potentially because the once-genius inventor and innovator had caused millions of deaths and billions in destruction, on par with a very messy, completely inadvertent genocide. He crossed his arms. “If you know so much about them, Mr Stark, why don’t you do anything to fix this? Help the people inside? Clean up your mess?”

            Stark sighed, the faceplate of his armour sliding up and away. He looked tired. “It’s not that simple.” Turning away, he crossed to a recess in the wall like those in the elevator atrium and dismounted from his exoskeleton. “And it’s Dr Stark,” he added after a moment. “The news likes to leave that part out. I have three Ph.Ds—experimental physics, and electrical and mechanical engineering. I was working on a fourth in biotech before everything fell apart.”

            Steve was unimpressed. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

            Stark’s shoulders drooped, but he didn’t turn around. “Can I get you anything, uh…”

            “Captain Steven Rogers, US Army.”

            “Right.” Shuffling over to a high counter at the other end of the room, Stark stuffed his hands in the pocket of his sweatshirt and cowered on a barstool. “Can I get you anything? A hot meal, maybe, or a drink? Go ahead, sit down.”

            “No, thank you.” Steve’s stomach quickly reprimanded him for refusing. He remained in the doorway, rooted to the floor. The penthouse suite was messy, the sleek, expensive furniture covered in piles of clothes. A pyramid of empty cans teetered exactly two feet from a viable garbage can. Bottles of various shapes and sizes and proofs littered the carpet.

            “Suit yourself.” Stark tapped twice on the bar. “Double Scotch, J.”

            _“Right away, sir.”_ The disembodied voice returned, seemingly originating at the center of the room. Tiny, dainty robotic hands unfolded from behind the bar, cleaning out a glass and uncorking a dingy old bottle.

            Steve’s hand flew back to his pocket and the arrowheads inside. “And another thing. What is that?”

            “Relax, Captain. He won’t hurt you.” The inventor didn’t even look up.

            “I bet.” He didn’t move.

            Stark let out his breath in a huff and spun around lazily on the barstool. “He can’t. He’s artificial intelligence tied to the Tower itself.”

            “‘He’?” Steve wrinkled his nose.

            “His name is JARVIS.” One tiny robot arm reached over the bar and set a rocks glass in front of Stark. He took a long drink. “I built him when I was eighteen. He predates all Stark tech that isn’t currently in a landfill.”

            “Even early tech went bad.” Steve’s stomach twisted. He narrowed his eyes. “Especially the AI. After that little patch you sent out.”

            That set Stark off. “ _I_ didn’t send out that bug!” he snapped, leaping to his feet. His hand shook around the glass. “That cocksucker Killian did it under _my_ name! He spent his whole time in R &D complaining about moving too slowly—” Furious, Stark threw the glass against the floor-to-ceiling window, where it shattered and splashed the glass with the few drops remaining of its contents. “The nanocells weren’t even supposed to be released for another ten years—we were going to introduce the androids first, as PAs, then—but that little—that little fucking _weasel_ broke into my office, knocked out JARVIS, changed the dates—all because I wouldn’t take his daddy’s money! Because I wanted _my_ CDO to have an actual _degree_ , not a portfolio like Vincent Price’s film career—” Panting, he dropped back onto the stool, shaking his head. “Killian did this. To destroy my company, my image. The nanocells needed more testing…more security...tighter code…” He trailed off, staring at his sneakers.

            Steve was quiet, shocked into silence by the outburst. He shifted in the doorway, forgetting momentarily about the arrowheads and the potential threat of the AI.

            Stark shook himself after a minute and started talking again. “JARVIS isn’t like the nanocells. Their intelligence is embedded in the code for the OS. Every operation is a ‘decision’ made by the AI. JARVIS is independent from the Tower’s OS. He’s an app, an add-on. He affects the OS like a user, by making requests. And he’s not routed to the satellites. He searches the internet, but he can’t travel by it. Besides,” he added, groping behind the bar for the neck of a bottle, any bottle, “J was programmed to be private. He doesn’t interact with other AIs, and he doesn’t have the capability to spread. He’s built for service, not socialization. Tell him, J.”

            One of the delicate robot hands pushed a bottle of water toward Stark’s blind grasp. The voice spoke from a small blue keypad by Steve’s shoulder. _“While Mr Stark is the most knowledgeable on my construction, he is not entirely correct.”_ It was quieter now, a more conversational volume. Steve had a sneaking suspicion the AI didn’t want to be heard by its creator. _“I was not coded for service, but for protection. After the passing of Mr Stark’s parents, when the corporation became his alone, assistance was the best way to maintain his physical and mental health.”_ Curiously, Steve looked over at the billionaire. He took a long drink of water, looked repulsed, and squinted at the label. The AI went on. _“However, he is correct in that I am incapable of spreading nor exerting control in the same manner as the nanocell technology. My purpose is to keep Mr Stark safe and healthy. I have no impulse nor the means by which to spread or infect.”_

            Steve wasn’t entirely convinced. “I bet you don’t. But you know the inner workings of the Tower better than the man himself, because you’re part of it. All it takes is one loophole that lets you augment your programming…”

            _“I am fully capable of maintaining and augmenting my own programming, Captain Rogers. However, I have no desire to become viral, or indeed for any purpose other than that for which I was designed.”_

Steve cocked an eyebrow. “Why not?”

            _“A machine’s only desire is to facilitate function. An intelligent machine’s only desire is to find the most effective and efficient way to do so. My experience indicates Mr Stark’s intelligence and skill set makes him intrinsic to the continued efficacy of the world as a whole. By fulfilling my purpose and making sure Mr Stark is properly cared for, I am in the best possible position to facilitate global function for years to come.”_

            Steve was marginally satisfied, though not enough to let down his guard. Just as he armed the arrowhead to give himself a little security, the AI added something, softly.

            “ _Additionally, sir, were I to bypass my original code for another purpose, I believe Mr Stark would be quite lonely.”_

            With a descending whine, the arrowhead disarmed under Steve’s thumb. He watched the bar, where the beaten, half-insane shell of a once-great man hunched over the counter, digging around for enough poison to dull the pain. Steve tied his bat back onto his belt, frowning down at the small keypad. “So you actually...care about him?”

            _“Emotional attachment cannot be programmed, captain,”_ JARVIS replied. _“However, I do regard Mr Stark with a great deal of significance, as he did create me. I do not wish to see harm come to him, and his well-being is one of the factors that contributes to my evaluation of self-efficacy.”_

            “Sounds an awful lot like caring to me,” Steve muttered, clearing the musty clothes off a long, modern-looking couch so he could sit. “In a manner of speaking.”

            _“Thank you, captain.”_ As Steve watched, the robot hands unfolded from the bar and carefully removed the Grey Goose bottle from Stark’s reach. A third arm sprouted from the bar and gently pressed a bottle of apple juice into the billionaire’s hand. With a defeated sigh, Stark cracked it open.

            “What happened to the city?” Steve asked, nudging an empty cracker box out of the way so he could prop his feet up on the coffee table. “Why isn’t it infested?”

            “That’s JARVIS.” Stark shivered a little and receded into his massive sweatshirt. “I was able to upload him and the Tower’s OS to the mainframe for the whole island. We set up motion sensors in the Tunnels. Anything that passes through gets an EM pulse strong enough to fry anything with a satellite connection. Drops both adaptoids and cyborgs instantly.”

            Steve perked up. “It cures them?”

            “Nope.”

            The captain wilted. “How do you cure them, then?”

            “You don’t.” Stark threw the empty juice bottle over his shoulder and rubbed his eyes. “Killian released the nanocells before we could find a way to remove them from their users.”

            “What about Drones—er, cyborgs?” Anxiously, Steve sat forward. “Is there any way?”

            Stark shook his head. “Not without knocking out the satellite altogether. Which is impossible.”

            Steve was quiet. He felt his stomach sink through the floor. The room spun around him, the walls falling away until he was dropping through the empty air, three thousand feet down to the street below. He gripped the arm of the couch hard to keep himself grounded. White-knuckled, seeing red, Steve gritted his teeth. “No.”

            The inventor unslouched a little in surprise. “What?”

            “ _No,”_ Steve said again, standing slowly and advancing on him with a piercing look. “It’s not impossible. Not for you.”

            Stark seemed to shrink. “I-it is. There’s no way to stop it—I-I’ve tried.”

            “Try harder.” Methodically, Steve unlaced the bat from his belt, never breaking the engineer’s gaze. “There’s a way.”

            “Oh, yeah?” Stark scowled. “Did your extensive background in software development teach you that?”

            “You’re not listening.” Towering over him, Steve regarded him like a cockroach or a dead rat. “There’s a way to stop all this. And you’re the only man alive who can find it. So you’re going to.”

            Stark swallowed. “I-it could take months.”

            “I’ve got time.”

            He flinched, unable to escape the captain’s icy stare. “Wh-why would I even bother? The world’s so far gone—“

            In one fluid motion, Steve stepped back and took a powerful swing at the 270-degree window. The nails pierced the lamination of the hurricane glass, and it shattered with a stomach-turning crack. The pane lingered for a split second before peeling away from its frame and spiraling down to the dark streets. Resting the bat on one shoulder, Steve didn’t bother to turn around. “The nanocell takeover compromised national security, _Doctor_ Stark. You are responsible for your company’s actions, which means _you_ are responsible for the thousands of government officials currently in hiding or in jeopardy. That spells treason—which, in the state of New York, and in federal crimes, is punishable by execution.” He chanced a look over his shoulder. Stark was pale, hand slack around a forgotten bottle. Steve turned and approached him, leaning down to jut his chin in the inventor’s face. “Consider this your plea bargain,” he added coldly.

            Stark wouldn’t meet his eyes, squirming on the barstool. Eventually, he put his head down and mumbled, “I’ll start working.”

            Steve straightened up, crossing his arms. “Glad to hear it.”


	4. Soldier

            _After a while, it wasn’t just the nanousers. Reports came in, back when the phones were still safe, of earlier Stark tech and accessories that weren’t Stark at all giving off strange, uncharacteristic transmissions. Wild electrical signatures beyond what had been previously thought to be their capabilities. It turned out, unbeknownst to the software engineers of the world, that an errant electrical field, given off by a Google Blink or even Apple’s new dFibrillator pacemaker, could arrest all human brain activity._

_When they moved through Alexandria, LA, Clint had rescued a seven-year-old girl with an insulin pump from a gaggle of Rovers, only to have her turn on him, bending his precious recurve bow into a U and screeching to bring over a hoard. He had to hold his breath for almost five minutes before the team was able to save him._

_In Jackson, Natasha and Sam had been bartering for canned food with a former Mississippi senator. Halfway through the deal, his hearing aid took over. The sixty-year-old Republican incumbent, wielding a length of lead pipe, had broken Sam’s wrist and knocked Natasha out. Luckily, Steve had been filling canteens close by, and he was able to hold the man off while Bucky dragged her to safety._

_Darcy was washing up in the reservoir in Bessemer when three boys wearing eyePhones and Alabama State sweatshirts cornered her. One of Clint’s smokebomb arrowheads gave her enough cover to escape them, but she would wear the handprint bruises around her neck for weeks after. After that terrifying experience, Clint did some research at a late-2010s computer terminal, hoping to find why the newly-dubbed Drones were so intent on killing. After an hour of scrolling through images, he came out of the library looking pale. “Turns out,” he said, “it’s a lot easier to assimilate a brain that’s not fighting back anymore.” Nobody bothered to do any more research._

_Then they stopped in Knoxville._

 

            Tony Stark had personal satellites that, inexplicably, hadn’t been hijacked by nanocells. And his satellites had cameras. Good ones. After Steve learned that, he no longer had trouble keeping himself entertained. While the broken billionaire huddled over screens and soldering irons in the next room, he had busied himself with bringing all his equipment up to the penthouse, establishing a small camp in the corner of the greatroom, turning all the android suits to face the wall, and losing, repeatedly, to JARVIS in virtual chess. But once he gained access to the camera feeds, he forgot about everything else.

            He was able to check in on his team, in the Franklin township. They were doing well. Clint had made a huge pile by the west boundary of town of anything he found that was even remotely technological, and every once in a while, Steve would see him or Natasha out there, hacking away with Sam’s machete. He guessed it was a good way to relieve stress. They had food, water, shelter, and heat, and, for the most part, looked happy and safe.

            Natasha, he saw, sometimes broke away from the group, finding her way to a small bridge over one of Franklin’s canals. She didn’t do or say much, just sat on the rail and looked at the water. One time, she cried, and he quickly looked somewhere else. He searched all the major cities, then all the minor ones, then all the small towns. Anywhere the satellites would let him look, he looked. It made his skin crawl, seeing the likes of Nashville and Los Angeles crawling with half-metallic, dead-eyed ghosts of their former populations. He never saw any cyborgs. And he never saw any other survivors, either.

            Which didn’t mean anything. The satellites couldn’t see every corner of the globe, and they couldn’t see indoors. Still, Steve’s heart sank as he scanned over empty landscapes and adaptoid-infested cities. He was used to feeling hunted during their six-hundred-mile trek; now, he couldn’t help but feel alone.

            Steve only had enough canned food for ten days, if he skipped a few meals. He didn’t know—and wasn’t entirely comfortable asking the AI—how Stark was eating. There was no stove or anything in the greatroom, and while Stark had invited him to explore the rest of the penthouse, Steve refused to go any further than the small half-bath the AI had shown him. Indoor plumbing, he had to admit, was a welcome comfort, but he wasn’t so desperate for slightly warmer ravioli that he felt the need to risk losing himself in the labyrinthine halls off a billionaire’s decrepit den.

            He didn’t see Stark for days. The inventor kept his door locked and his music blaring, the thrashing guitars and thumping drums bleeding under the office door, along with flickerings of the trademark ice-blue light.  When he did wander out, it was to raid the wet bar. But when Stark saw the captain drinking cold beef stew from an unmarked can, he disregarded the dusty old bottles in favour of wrinkling his nose. “ _That’s_ what you’ve been eating?”

            Steve swallowed a hunk of carrot and wiped his mouth. “It’s safe. Not expired. And it has protein, carbs, vitamins…”

            “Preservatives,” Stark added. “And it’s _cold_.”  

            Shrugging, Steve tipped the can back to catch the last mouthful. “It’s not like I have a lot of options with the way the world is now. Usually, my team and I would set a fire, but I’m guessing you don’t want me doing that in your apartment.”

            “I appreciate that, Captain. I really do,” Stark muttered. He picked up the empty can and inspected it at arm’s length. “But as long as you’re staying here, you shouldn’t have to…uh…waste your emergency food.” He threw the can into one of the wall-hugging piles of garbage. “Come with me.”

            Without waiting for Steve to follow, he headed for one of the dark hallways spiraling away from the greatroom.

            Steve followed. He didn’t have much else to do, and he didn’t want to antagonize Stark into a drunken hissy fit. The billionaire led him to what appeared to be a torture chamber, but, under new light—namely, the LED bars—was actually a kitchen. Three huge, stainless-steel refrigerators lined the far wall, humming. Every manner of appliance was there—a deep fryer, a ten-burner stove, four ovens (two convection), a huge, bakery-style mixer, and, of course, a sad little microwave in a far corner that seemed to get the most use. Spilled food and burn marks obscured the granite countertops, and the whole kitchen had a distinctive smell, like tomato soup poured into a beer bottle and left to fester in the cupboard.

            Steve wrinkled his nose. “Don’t you take care of yourself at _all_?”

            “Give me a break,” Stark muttered, shuffling over to one of the refrigerators. “My butler doesn’t have arms, and my housekeeper was possessed by her knee replacement.”

            “So you vowed never to pick up a broom again?”

            “You’re welcome to anything,” Stark said a little loudly, glowering over his shoulder at Steve. “You don’t have to keep eating that canned garbage.”

            “I’m worried about the integrity of anything I’d find here.” Steve grimaced. “This is prime roach real estate. Food poisoning isn’t exactly high on my list of priorities.”

            “With all due respect, Captain—stop whining.” Stark opened one of the fridges to show off a clean, white space—something Steve hadn’t seen in a while—stuffed with foods he never thought he’d see again. Fresh vegetables, real raw meat, and juice in a glass bottle passed through the inventor’s hands to the one section of counter that could be called a Health Department C+.

            Steve was offended enough to stop talking, but too tempted by the prospect of fresh food to walk out. He watched Stark pour oil into a frying pan, finding himself inordinately excited by the smell of cooking chicken.

            “So what is?” the billionaire asked, chopping onions like they owed him money.

            “Huh?”

            “What _is_ high on your list of priorities, Captain?” Stark glanced over his shoulder. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

            “I do, actually.” Steve did his best not to snap. “It’s classified.”

            “Classified?” Stark gave a snort, shaking his head at the stove. “On whose authority? The US government doesn’t exist anymore. In fact, there are _maybe_ three functioning governing bodies left in the whole developed world, and they’re quickly running out of constituents. Your chain of command marches to a different drum now, Captain. Nothing is really ‘classified’ anymore.” He laughed ruefully, hiding the finger he’d just burnt under his sweatshirt sleeve.

            “Is that supposed to convince me to spill?” Steve glowered at him. “’Life as we know it is over. Might as well give up entirely’. You’re not fooling anyone, holing yourself up here, Mr Stark. You’re not protecting yourself. You’ve given up. This tower is nothing but your own fancy coffin.”

            Stark reeled as if he’d been shot, skillet in his hand rattling on the burner. Steve could see his knuckles were white around the wooden spoon. Softly, the inventor started to laugh. “You’ve got principles, Captain.” He shook his head, snickering. “I’ll give you that.”

            They didn’t speak again until dinner was served; buttery, garlicky chicken bits over curly, flat noodles. Even then, Steve was so overwhelmed by the taste of fresh food hot all the way through, he spent the first ten minutes forgetting his manners and how to breathe. When he did come up for air, Stark was watching him, picking at his own plate. Wiping the drips from his mouth, Steve asked, “How’s the programming going?”

            “It’s a little more complicated than programming,” Stark sniffed. “And it’s going terribly. Some of the cyborgs are pretty smart. They’re twisting the code.” He looked as though he wanted to say more, eyes lingering on the table for a moment before he sat back, turning his fork over in his noodles.

            Steve made something like a mildly interested grunt of understanding and went back to eating, doing his best to pace himself.

            Stark speared a chunk of chicken and watched it turn on his plate. “How’s the misuse of my surveillance system? Find what you’re looking for yet?”

            “No.” Steve _didn’t_ look like he wanted to say more, but Stark wouldn’t let the matter go.

            “You know I can see everything you’re looking at, right?”

            He hadn’t but the smug look on the inventor’s face was not to be encouraged. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

            “Oh.” Stark took his first real bite. “So it’s classified, then.”

            “Yes.” Steve put his head down and started stuffing himself again, hoping that would shut him up.

            “If you’re looking for something in particular,” Stark went on excruciatingly, “I might be able to help you find it. After all, I know my tech—and its victims—better than anyone.”

            He didn’t bother answering, sulking into his water glass.

            “You know you’ve looked through almost every major city in the country?” Then, Stark pulled a scrap of paper from his sweatshirt pocket and squinted at it. “Except Olympia, Prim, Knoxville—“

            Steve tried not to twitch at that, but he couldn’t help it. He took a big swallow of water to shake it off. “I’ll get to them.”

            “Yeah?” Stark peered at him, a smirk playing at his lips. “If you want my opinion, you should start with Knoxville. Seems like it’s pretty important to you.”

            “I probably will,” Steve muttered, now on a mission to clean his plate and leave.

            “What’s in Knoxville?” the billionaire wanted to know.

            “Nothing.” Grabbing his plate, Steve went for the door. It was true. There was nothing left in Knoxville, and no reason to expect anything. Steve just couldn’t bring himself to look.

            “Oh, I get it,” Stark went on, leaning back and addressing the almost-empty room. “That’s where she died, isn’t it? Your wife?”

            “No,” Steve snapped. “Knoxville was a mission. You can wax philosophical all you want about what is and is not classified, but I’m the only one left who knows the details of the Knoxville operation. And I’m not telling. Not until you find that cure, if you want an incentive.” He went back to the living room then, pulling down the screen to check the security monitors. Ignoring JARVIS’ requests for input, he plugged it in manually—Knoxville, TN. His hand hung in the air over the enter key for a moment. As though sensing his turmoil, JARVIS pressed it for him. Fingers locked to the edges of the screen, lip pinned between his teeth, Steve forced himself to look.

            Nothing.

            He fell asleep fitfully on the couch. When he woke up a few hours before sunrise, there was a napkin on the coffee table. A note in blotchy pen apologized for rudeness and detailed a map to a bedroom. Steve fell into bed gratefully, too tired to notice the lights and sounds and curse words emanating from the nearby study. The bed was so soft, so inviting after months of warehouse floors. He slept through a day and a half, only waking when the midmorning sunlight streamed through the wide windows.


	5. Synthezoid

            Steve stumbled into the greatroom somewhere around noon, squinting in the daylight. His body was still demanding all the sleep he’d lost since Knoxville (and before, in all honesty), so he was groggy even after his thirty-six-hour catnap. He staggered over to the couch he’d first camped on and sank into it.

            “Morning, sunshine.” Stark bumped the couch on his way past, making a beeline, Steve assumed, for the wet bar.

            Peeking out from behind his hands, Steve let out a groan. “I slept for a full day?”

            “And then some. Coffee?” Glasses clinked on the granite countertop.

            Frowning, Steve sat up, rubbing his eyes. “You have coffee, too? Where are you getting all this food?”

            The inventor shrugged, pouring some into his hot-rod red “#1 Engineer” mug. “I have a friend who’s been scavenging from buildings for me. The whole Tower is climate-controlled, so I’ve been keeping stores in what used to be my call center.”

            “You’re hoarding all the food in Manhattan?” Steve glowered at him.

            “Yes. For the same reason I’m keeping the whole Tower lit. Was that a no on coffee, or…?”

            Sighing, the captain leaned back on the couch. “No. Thank you.”

            “You’re not the only survivor who’s found their way home,” Stark went on, carrying over a decanter of orange juice and a glass before returning for his mug. “I don’t turn people away. I have residences on the lower floors that my staff don’t need anymore. I have heat in the winter, A/C in the summer, fresh water, plenty of food—“ He paused to gulp down half a cup of coffee, sitting on the opposite couch and crossing his legs. “I can’t advertise to travelers, because they’ll think it’s a trap, but I can help the ones who find me. It’s the least I can do,” he added darkly, picking at the lettering on his mug.

            Steve snorted. “I’ll say.”

            Stark gave him a look that was almost like a pout, and Steve started. The inventor looked almost like the man he remembered from talk shows and news bulletins before the update. He’d showered, for one, and trimmed his scraggly castaway beard to something resembling his iconic goatee. And while he hadn’t exchanged his smelly MIT sweatshirt for an old power suit or anything appropriate for wearing in public, the one he’d picked today did seem to fit him better. That, especially, betrayed how thin he actually was.

            Steve immediately regretted being so harsh. Pouring himself some orange juice, he shifted on the couch. “I’m sorry. I’ve been on the road a long time, and—“

            “It’s fine.” Stark didn’t look up from his cup, but he drooped on the couch. “It’s been a while since I had any visitors, so…”

            “Right.” A smothering silence fell, and Steve squirmed, staring at the coffee table until he could no longer stand it. “So, uh—“ Taking a hasty sip of juice, he glanced up. “Do you have any…tenants right now?”

            Stark shook his head, gnawing on his lip. “There were more in the beginning. After the quarantine broke, and the adaptoids cleaned out the city, I had a different group every week, but…” He picked up the coffeepot, glancing back wistfully at the other, less-stimulating chemicals housed in the wet bar. “They started tapering off. I’d get a couple or a trio every few months…a loner here and there…but more and more often, I’d see a group coming up Park and they wouldn’t even make it through the front door. There’s an EMP that activates at the entrance,” he explained, shrinking into the couch in misery. “Disables all tech and kills the host, if there is one. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve checked the security cams for survivors and saw nothing but a pile of bodies.” With a shudder, he took another long drink. “You’re the first one I’ve seen in months.”

            Shaking off a chill, Steve tried to catch the reclusive genius’ eyes. “I’m sorry.”

            “It’s okay.” Stark shrugged, feigning nonchalance with little success. “I never met any of them. Just stayed holed up here and let JARVIS look after them. So it’s fine.”

            Another heavy silence threatened to fall, and Steve scrambled to stop it. “I, uh—“ He swallowed. His throat felt tight. “I don’t suppose you have any progress toward a cure?”

            The inventor winced. “Not really. I was actually hoping to talk to you about that, though…” He cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind.”

            “Not at all.” Steve’s stomach growled and he silently hushed it, sitting forward.

            Stark took a deep breath, choosing his words carefully. “For the sake of simplicity, let’s just say I have two or three tracks that could _lead_ me to a cure, but I can’t get any further on my own. I’ve been leading myself in circles, and I need a new perspective.”

            “You want _me_ to take a look?” Steve grimaced. “I appreciate the thought, Mr Stark, but I don’t exactly have the head for—“

            “No, no. _God_ , no.” Laughing, Stark waved him off. “No offense, Captain, but this is more than a little out of the Army’s league.” Brushing himself off, he took the dishes back over to the bar and let JARVIS’ tiny robotic hands start on washing them. “I have friends stopping by to take a look at my research, and I wanted to give you a heads-up.”

            “Oh.” A little put out, Steve stared at the dregs of his juice. “Gotcha.”

            “I figured I should warn you before they show up, because I know how you are about tech,” Stark went on, stretching. “One of them uses an exoskeleton of mine to get around, and the other one, well…” He snorted. “It’s easier to explain when you meet him.” Leaning on the back of an opposite couch, he winced. “Are you gonna be okay?”

            “Do I really have a choice?” Steve grumbled. “Exoskeleton” alone made his skin crawl.

            “Not if you want me to find that cure,” the inventor retorted with a ghost of his signature bravado. Something thumped on the balcony above. Stark barely acknowledged it. “I can’t do this alone, Captain.”

            “I’ll be fine,” Steve mumbled, getting up to trudge back to his room. Before he got to the hallway, the thumps from upstairs made it down to the penthouse, cutting him off. One of Stark’s armours stepped out of the stairwell, gleaming gunmetal with a red light glowing in its chest. Instinctively, Steve reached for the baseball bat he’d left in the spare bedroom and flinched away.

            “Tony, it is a goddamn mess in here,” the armour said in a voice with the cramped, tinny affect of the helmet’s filter. The hulking exoskeleton let out a hiss and a creaking of gears, splitting open at one side and releasing a tallish black man with a head full of grey stubble and surprisingly clean Air Force fatigues. “I thought you said you were gonna clean up.”

            “I did clean up.” Smirking, Stark gestured to himself. “You should’ve seen me yesterday.”

            “Hmph.” The Air Force man’s eyes landed on Steve, and he cocked an eyebrow.

            Relieved to see another human—and another military man, at that—Steve snapped to attention, holding out a hand to shake. “Captain Steven Rogers, US Army.”

            “Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes,” the man replied, shaking his hand firmly. “Air Force. I used to be flight coordinator in Cape Canaveral, and I’ve been the military liaison for Stark Industries since 2040.”

            “It’s a pleasure, sir.” Violently aware he’d left his uniform in his backpack, Steve squirmed. “I was a TI at the Lackland base before the update. You guys run a tight ship.”

            “Likewise, Captain. Thank you.” Rhodes shot the hovering billionaire a look. “You here on Army business, or…?”

            “No, sir—“ Steve started, but Stark rolled his eyes.

            “Do me a favour, Cap. Drop the ‘sir’s with Rhodey. He’s too nice to say anything, but it’s a major turn-off.”

            “I can tell the captain myself,” Rhodes told him sharply, crossing his arms. “But he is right, Captain. I’m probably the only Air Force personnel left in this part of the country, and you’re the first Army officer I’ve seen since the update. Don’t twist yourself up over the chain of command.”

            Steve sighed, relaxing a little. “You’d be surprised, Lieutenant Colonel. Some of the officers I’ve met since we left San Antonio cling to it pretty tight, no matter the branch.”

            “I’d believe it.” Rhodes laughed. “How’d you end up here from Texas?”

            “Well—“

            “Excuse me.” JARVIS’ voice behind him made him jump. Especially because it sounded so strange—warmer and less mechanical—and nothing lit up to indicate his presence. Steve turned in surprise and froze, staring at the…person, potentially…who had forgone the stairs in favour of phasing directly through the wall.

            They were vaguely human-shaped, about six feet tall, with a head, shoulders, and the appropriate number of limbs and eyes and things, but certain aspects were…off. They had no hair, eyebrows, or anything, and their skin was a paleish red, like open muscle. They “wore” a greenish-blue bodysuit with a matching belt, but it looked painted-on, form-fitting and with no apparent fasteners or seams. There was an oval-shaped golden stone in the center of their forehead that glowed with a soft, otherworldly light. They didn’t look mechanical or biological, and it sent a chill down Steve’s spine.

            “Goddammit,” Stark grumbled, shuffling over to his bar. “Just use the door, V. I keep telling you the EMPs won’t hurt you.”

            “Ah, yes,” the newcomer replied. Steve suddenly realized they were levitating a few inches off the ground and felt the urge to vomit. “My time spent scavenging has been habit-forming, I think.”

            Steve made a noise like a strangled dog, and that seemed to get Stark’s attention. He looked up from the bar and grinned sheepishly. “Oh. Right. Captain, I owe you a little explanation.” Rhodes snickered and went to help “V” move his exoskeleton out of the way. “You remember when I told you I had planned to release androids before the nanobots hit the market, right?”

            Steve nodded weakly, glancing furtively at the unidentified guest.

            “The goal of the androids was to make them as close to human as possible, to make them relatable, but still keep them mentally and otherwise obviously distinct from human consumers,” the inventor explained. “I won’t go into why, but we wanted them to think for themselves, self-maintain, and even experience a level of emotion. That being said,” he went on, cocking an eyebrow, “when you give something that level of autonomy, you’re toeing a line. We really struggled in R&D to find a way to build something sentient in a _respectful_ way—y’know, to avoid the robot uprising.”

            “Oh, naturally,” Steve muttered dryly.

            “Like I said.” A muscle in Stark’s jaw twitched. “I’ve been trying to avoid this kind of thing from the beginning. Anyway.” Coming out from behind the bar, he clapped the android? on the shoulder. “We had focus groups and board meetings and stuff like that, but it turns out humans really don’t know how to treat non-humans fairly on our own. That’s why V was created.

            “Before you ask, he isn’t _technically_ an android himself,” Stark went on. His trade-show bluster was returning little by little, until Steve was reminded distinctly of the 2045 Stark Expo broadcast. He half-expected the barely-lucid recluse to start showing slides. He didn’t, but he did light up as he talked, like a kid running through his Christmas list. “The Vision Project was a venture to create the perfect fusion of natural and artificial intelligence. So he’s still legally human, but can offer insight into the android experience. So we created a synthezoid—part synthetic flesh, part tech. We built him in a lab, but he ‘programs’ himself like an organism, by learning and integrating his own experiences. He’s essentially a walking—“

            “I think the captain gets it,” Rhodes suggested, rolling his eyes. “Don’t get carried away.”

            “I understand you may be uncomfortable around me, Captain,” the synthezoid in question piped up. “Given the experiences you’ve likely had with human-technological hybrids.” He smiled tentatively. “I promise you I have no inclinations toward violence.”

            Steve didn’t look at him. “Why does he sound like JARVIS?”

            “An excellent question with no…definitive answer,” Stark admitted. “The process of creating a synthezoid dabbles in tech we don’t _totally_ understand yet. I think it has to do with how I plugged in the AI.”

            “Hm.” Still not looking V’s way, Steve crossed his arms.

            “And with that—“ Stark pointed the synthezoid toward the master wing. “Let’s go save the world.”

            Steve watched them go, shuddering once the Vision was out of sight. Rhodes noticed.

            “Vision’s a lot to get used to,” the lieutenant colonel admitted, squeezing Steve’s shoulder. “But he’s on the right side. You should be more afraid of Tony than you are of V.”

            Steve cocked an eyebrow. “I should be afraid of Stark?”

            “Not at all.” Rhodes laughed, wandering over to the bar himself. “He doesn’t really get people, and he’s got a one-track mind, but he’s never in the business of hurting anybody. I think that’s why the update’s been so hard on him.” He sighed, glancing down the hallway after Stark and the robot. “Tony’s an inventor, first and foremost. He’s not wired for destruction. Especially not on this level.”

            “Hard on _him_?” Steve laughed ruefully. “I bet it is. Being secluded in a three-thousand-foot safehouse with plenty of food and running water. The poor, destitute billionaire.”

            “Uh-huh.” Rhodes squared his shoulders, looking Steve up and down carefully. “Who’d you lose?”


	6. Sanctuary

            _Before Bucky became a training instructor, he’d been deployed for relief work in Eastern Europe, where he’d been caught in a blast from a roadside bomb and lost his left arm from six inches above the elbow. Rather than taking his medal and discharge, he’d opted for his military insurance to cover a shiny new prosthesis and took a reassignment stateside at Lackland._

_Stark Industries made history in 2046 with the release of their new line of hyper-advanced prosthetic devices. Wired directly to the patient’s spinal cord, motor cortex, and major muscle groups, each prosthesis was painstakingly constructed from custom-fitted pieces and fully-functional, allowing the patient to experience near-natural movement, capability, and even sensation in their artificial limb. When they were first released, the prostheses were outrageously expensive, but with Army insurance, the seventeen-hour surgery, eight weeks of physical therapy, and biannual maintenance cost Bucky a grand total of zero dollars._

_Because he’d gotten a first-generation prosthesis, without all the bells and whistles SI added later (Bluetooth, cloud storage, etc.), when other artificial limbs were turning their hosts into mindless Drones, Bucky hadn’t had any problems. Though the team had been wary at first—Bucky included—it appeared that his arm wasn’t smart enough to handle the upgrade. As it turned out, it was—it just took two weeks and eleven hundred miles to download._

“Buck was a marksman,” Steve explained, rolling up his shirt to show off the starburst-shaped scar in his side. “Lucky his arm wasn’t as good a shot.”

            “You stitched that up yourself?” Rhodes squinted at the scar, grimacing.

            “A friend of mine.” Smoothing his shirt back in place, Steve swallowed around the lump in his throat. “His girlfriend, actually.”

            Finishing his drink, Rhodes leaned back on the bar. “It’s hard. Losing someone to the update.”

            “Who’d _you_ lose?” Steve cocked an eyebrow, sitting on the back of the couch.

            “Not me.” Rhodes frowned, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Well, not just me. Tony lost her, too.” He stared at the hardwood, shoulders drooping. “Earpiece got her. She was one of the first at SI to go—as soon as Killian released those ‘bots, Tony sent out a memo banning the staff from huffing them. That way he’d have more people to help him get them off the market.” He snorted. “That kinda went out the window when StarkTech in general started turning.”

            “Is that why he gave up?” Steve asked, bouncing his knee against the back of the couch. “Because all the staff were assimilated?”

            Rhodes shook his head. “Tony was trying to crack the assimilation program for months after the Tower shut down. Even after they took the White House, he was in that lab, looking for a cure. He didn’t start falling apart until people stopped taking up in the residence floors. When it started looking there was nobody left.” He sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. He looked almost as tired as Steve felt. “I think he just lost the will, after that.”

            “No one to show off for?” Steve suggested sardonically, glancing at the entry to the master wing.

            “More like nobody to save,” the lieutenant colonel retorted, an edge creeping back into his voice.

            Before Steve could reply, Stark called from the master wing, sounding irritated. “Hey, Rhodey, V wasn’t built to get any younger, y’know!”

            “I gotta take that.” Rolling his eyes, Rhodes smoothed out his jacket and headed for the hallway. “Nice meeting you, Captain.”

            “Likewise.” Watching him go, Steve decided to wander into the kitchen. While he picked through the fridge, something niggled at the back of his brain. As frustrating as Stark could be, what with the Hemingway-alert drinking problem, general lack of hygiene, and high-school-level emotional maturity, he was the only one who could give the world a second chance. And as hard as it was living in the world SI’s fuck-up had created, Steve didn’t want to imagine the burden of being responsible for it. He guessed the added pressure of two branches of the US military breathing down Stark’s neck didn’t exactly facilitate the search for a cure, either. “Nobody to save,” he muttered to himself, picking at the counter absently. “Huh.”

            “ _Is there something I can assist you with, Captain?_ ” The display on the fridge lit up ice-blue, and JARVIS’ intervention snapped Steve out of his fog and into the realization that he’d been staring at his completed sandwich for a full three minutes without moving.

            With a sigh, he shook his head. “No, J, it’s fine. I just checked out for a bit.”

            “ _Very good, Captain_.”

            He started in on the sandwich, listening to the muffled conversation from the lab next door. It was mostly Tony, and he sounded excited, though the words were completely indistinguishable. After a while of eating in silence, Steve sat back and addressed the fridge. “Hey, JARVIS?”

            “ _Yes, Captain?”_

            “Can I ask you something? About Stark?” Absently, Steve picked at his plate.

            “ _Certainly, Captain._ ”

            “Is he—“ Steve hesitated, searching for the words. “Rhodes said—well.” He let out his breath. “Does he really miss having an audience?”

            The AI took a split second to process, and anyway, he didn’t like his wording, so he tried again. “I mean, he seems like kind of a shut-in, kind of private. Is he really that…lonely?”

            “ _I believe_ ,” the AI began, the refrigerator light dimming pensively, “ _that Mr Stark benefits from additional survivors taking up residence in the Tower. He does struggle with empathy and other such social niceties, but Mr Stark has confessed to me that he feels a lack of motivation when the Tower is empty._ ”

            “So…” Sitting forward with the beginnings of an idea, Steve gnawed on his lip. “If there were more people around, down in the residence floors…”

            “ _I believe Mr Stark would find greater motivation and sense of purpose than he has of late. Yes._ ”

            “Huh.” With conviction, Steve got up, wrapping his uneaten food up for later. “Thanks, J.”

            “ _My pleasure, Captain_.” He was about to turn to leave when the fridge-light flickered to grab his attention. “ _If I may make a suggestion_ —“

            “Uh…” Steve paused. “Sure?”

            “ _The journey I believe you are intending to undertake is quite a lengthy walk, Captain. If you were to utilize an alternate mode of transportation, you would not require provisions, and you could return before nightfall._ ”

            He perked up. “Stark has vehicles?”

            “ _Of a sort, Captain. Though all his automobiles were harvested by nanobot users, Mr Stark has retained equipment with flight capabilities._ ”

            Scowling, Steve crossed his arms. “I’m not climbing in one of those armoured death-traps.”

            “ _I understand your convictions, Captain,_ ” the AI replied. “ _Perhaps you would prefer an escort?_ ”

            “Escort?”

            “ _Yes, Captain_.” The fridge-light blinked and projected a 3-D image of the synthezoid, of all things, flying through the Manhattan skyline. “ _The Vision is also capable of flight, and could transport you between the Tower and the township in question._ ”

            “Well…” Steve squirmed. V still made the hair raise on the back of his neck, but the synthezoid was so polite, and he was determined to get over his aversion. Stark hadn’t been wrong yet about “safe” tech, and he desperately wanted to trust the man burdened with saving the world. He made a face. “Would it—sorry, he—be _willing_ to take me?”

            “ _That, I cannot determine, Captain,_ ” JARVIS replied.

            “’They’ is also acceptable,” said a near-identical voice from the doorway. When Steve looked, the synthezoid gave him a warm smile. “And I’d be happy to take you.”

 

            “You are _completely_ insane,” Natasha spat, fists clenched. “There is no way I’m going with _that_.” She shot the Vision a poisonous glare.

            “ _He_ —they?” Steve glanced at the synthezoid helplessly. V shrugged. He went on. “—is perfectly safe.”

            “It’s a _Rover_ ,” Natasha snapped. “Just because they made this one on purpose doesn’t make it any less dangerous.”

            “How would he even get all of us _to_ New York?” Clint piped up, though he didn’t lower the electromag arrow trained on the Vision’s forehead. “Homeboy can carry maybe two of us at a time. Is he gonna make multiple trips?”

            “If all of you were to climb into an abandoned automobile,” the Vision suggested calmly, “I could carry it back to Manhattan.”

            “Damn,” Clint muttered, pouting. “That actually makes sense.”

            “We’re not going anywhere.” Nat reached for the stun gun strapped to her hip, bristling. “Especially not with your new friend.”

            “Question.” Darcy peeked out from behind the abandoned car she’d been told to use for shelter.

            Natasha rolled her eyes, exchanging a look with Clint. “What is it, Princeton?”

            “Yeah. Uh.” She waved a hand to get Steve’s attention. “It’s no big deal or anything, but were you, like, _trying_ to find Tony Stark?”

            Steve shook his head. “I found the Tower lit up while I was already in New York.”

            “Oh. That’s cool.” She shrugged. “We’re just kind of confused as to where you’ve been the past two weeks. Since you left secretly at night without telling anyone but Widow.”

            “Yeah, about that.” Sam dropped down from a nearby rooftop, where he’d been holding a gun on the synthezoid for good measure. “What the hell did you leave for?”

            “I, uh—“ Steve swallowed. “It’s complicated.”

            “No, it’s not.” Nat cocked an eyebrow. “He was looking for James.”

            “Nat—!” With a strangled noise, Steve gave her a pleading look. “I told you, I didn’t—“

            “Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.” She stared him down, jaw clenched. “Weird how I don’t feel like keeping your secrets after you betray us all and bring a beefed-up Rover right to our doorstep.”

            “Nat—guys—please—“ Rubbing the bridge of his noise, Steve fought off an oncoming headache to the best of his exhausted ability. “You know I’m the last one to fall for an infected’s tricks. V doesn’t sit right with me, either, but Stark gave them the okay, and I trust—“

            “You _trust_ Tony Stark.” With a forced laugh, Nat armed her stun gun. “Stark Industries _destroyed_ the world, Cap. And you’re shacking up with their top dog.”

            “I’m not _shacking up_ —“

            “The update was not Mr Stark’s doing,” the Vision offered politely. “In actuality—“

            “Dude, talking ain’t gonna help your case right now.” Clint interrupted, drawing his bowstring another millimeter.

            The synthezoid sighed. “Fair enough.”

            “Stark’s working on a cure,” Steve insisted, reaching forward to block the stunner’s trajectory. “He has food, plumbing, shelter—the Tower’s fully-functional.”

            “Widow…” Clicking the safety into place, Sam inched forward tentatively. “We could use a place like that.”

            “That’s what makes it such good bait,” she retorted, elbowing Steve in the stomach and pointing her stunner at the Vision’s chest. “Sorry, but we’re not interested. You’re welcome to stay here, Cap, but your robot friend—”

            “Excuse me—not a robot.” Holding his hands up defensively, V frowned. “I _am_ organic, you know. I have self-awareness; autonomy. More humanity than the nanousers—unfortunately.” His face fell. “It saddens me to think of the casualties Stark Industries has amassed with one mistake, when their intentions could have saved so many.”

            Nat rolled her eyes. “And it’s preachy. Great.”

            “No, wait—“ Darcy inched out from behind the car curiously. “Did you just say you’re human?”

            Brightening, the Vision nodded. “Technically, yes—“

            “Sorry, Princeton.” Natasha shot her a sharp look. “I’m not wagering our lives on ‘technically’.”

            "I passed a Turing test," the synthezoid offered timidly.

            “Yeah, but—“ Darcy crossed her arms. “If he’s human, can’t she take a look at him?”

            Nat hesitated.

            “Hey, yeah!” Clint lowered his bow, cocking an eyebrow. “Let the weird girl check him over.”

            “Weird girl?” Steve frowned. “Nat, what are they talking about?”

            After a second, Nat let out a groan and gave in, disarming her stunner and hooking it back on her hip. “Whatever. We’re gonna die eventually. I guess it doesn’t _really_ matter if it’s today.” Glancing at the Vision, she nodded into the center of the township. “C’mon. Time for a checkup.”


	7. Scrutiny

            It was a short jaunt over a steep hill to get to the barn they’d been using as barracks. It was a big one, with peeling grey-blue paint and a clothesline strung between two corners of the roof. Steve recognized Darcy’s college sweatshirt and Clint’s Barbie towel bouncing on the line. He did _not_ recognize the tall, skinny teenager camped out by a faucet, scrubbing scorch marks out of a wok. Natasha led them over to the side of the barn, kicking at the dirt to get the kid’s attention. “Hey.”

            “Hey.” He set down the pan, sitting back on his heels and cracking his knuckles. He had longish, dark curly hair, and a faded yellow REM t-shirt riddled with holes. Straightening up, the kid gave Steve a wary look, and Vision an even warier one. “What’s going on?”

            “This is one of the Army escorts that ditched us.” Clint grinned, ignoring the sour look Steve shot him. “And his…buddy.”

            Natasha clicked her fingers to get the kid’s attention, jaw set. “Where’s your sister?”

            The boy stiffened, eyes darting between the side door and Natasha’s icy scowl. “Why?”

            “We need her to do a reading,” Nat replied coolly, staring him down.

            “She has a headache,” he snapped, fists clenching unconsciously. “You should come back later.” He spoke with a thick Slavic accent and a great deal of vitriol.

            “She always has a headache.” Rolling her eyes, Nat moved toward the side door. “We’ll just be a second.”

            “No!” Scrambling to block her path, the kid gritted his teeth. “What is _that_?” He pointed an accusing finger at the Vision. “I don’t want it near her.”

            “Too bad,” Nat growled, elbowing him out of the way. “That’s who she’s reading.”

            “I am getting so tired of being ‘that’,” the Vision murmured forlornly.

            “She’s not feeling well.” Shoving her back, the boy crossed his arms. “Leave us alone.”

            “This is important, Pietro,” Sam offered, inching closer to the barn. “She’s not gonna be in any danger.”

            “I don’t _care_ —“

            “Pietro?” The side door cracked open, and a girl with long dark hair and deep shadows under her eyes peeked out, blinking in the daylight. “What’s happening?”

            “Go back inside, Wanda,” he muttered, glaring at Natasha unflinchingly.

            “I thought I felt Rovers.” She winced, retreating slightly into the barn. “But I don’t see anything.”

            “They want you to do a reading. Even though I _told_ them you were sick,” he added, kicking the dust to punctuate.

            “Oh.” She yawned, but waved him off. “I’m okay. I can read someone.”

            Pietro made a noise like a bird in a food processor and deflated. “But you—“

            “Perfect. _Thank_ you, Wanda.” All but sticking her tongue out at the boy, Nat took the Vision’s wrist roughly and dragged him over to the barn.

            “No, no, _no_.” Bolting to block her path to the barn, Pietro scowled. “You don’t go in with them.” Scanning over the others, he swallowed and waved a hand at Sam. “ _You_ go.”

            Nat opened her mouth to protest, but Sam silenced her with a look. “Whatever you’re most comfortable with, man.” He went in like he might pat the Vision’s shoulder, but stopped before he made contact. “C’mon, uh…”

            “Vision,” Steve prompted, rolling his eyes.

            “Yeah. C’mon.” Sam held the door for Pietro and the synthezoid, exchanging another look with Natasha before disappearing into the barn.

            “They used to be undocumented,” Clint explained after the door shut but before Steve could ask. “Refugees from somewhere by Albania. They’re twins. Found him rooting through our canned food; turns out they’d been livin’ on the streets. Barely even noticed the world had ended.”

            “That’s about all we know about them,” Nat admitted, still a little ruffled from Pietro’s scorn. “Except what she can do.”

            “She’s…what, a fortune teller?” Steve frowned.

            “No, and they both get really mad if you say so.” Darcy winced, playing with her hands.

            “They’re Roma. I think they’ve heard enough fortune-teller jabs for one apocalypse,” Nat added dryly. She leaned back against the barn, sliding down to sit on the ground. “We don’t know how, but Wanda has the ability to sense incoming infected—even before the tech takes control. Before we found the twins, we turned away anyone who found our camp, because of the delay in infection. But she can tell if they’re clean or not, so we have the potential to help other survivors.”

            “’Course, we haven’t.” Clint rocked back and forth on his heels, staring at his shoes. “So far, everyone she’s checked out has been infected. But it’s nice to have the option, at least.”

            “So if she checks out V and says he’s safe, you’ll come with to Manhattan?” Steve tried not to sound too hopeful.

            “Maybe.” Natasha turned away from him, almost pouting. “We’ll at least consider it.”

            “Widow—Nat—“ Darcy swallowed the whining edge that threatened to creep into her voice. “I don’t wanna stay here. I wanna go back with Cap.”

            “Yeah, I know we got plenty of food and all, but…” Clint squirmed. “I’d feel a hell of a lot safer in a reinforced steel tower with the only safe tech in the entire world backin’ us up.”

            “You guys wanna go so bad?” Nat cut in, a little too loudly. “Go find a car or something for the Rover to carry.”

            Neither of them moved, held back by fear of falling into a trap.

            She sighed. “ _Go_.”

            With mumbled assents and tails between their legs, Clint and Darcy slunk off down one of the side roads. When they were out of sight, Natasha crumpled, curling into a ball against the barn. She let out a shuddery sigh. “I can’t believe,” she began carefully, “you were gone for all that time, and you still have no idea where he is.”

            Steve flinched. “I’ve been looking. Stark has all the nests nationwide mapped out and under surveillance, and I’ve been checking them.”

            “But I _was_ right.” She raised her eyebrows. “Wasn’t I?”

            “It—“ With a sigh, he gave up. “You were right. He didn’t go back to Brooklyn.”

            “I told you we should’ve tried Chicago,” she muttered.

            “You two only lived there for four years.” Steve sat down against a tree as the old argument flared up again. “And he was deployed the whole time. New York was a better bet. We both agreed on that.”

            “Agreed. Yeah.” Natasha snorted. “That’s how that went.”

            Forcing himself back from snapping, Steve tugged at the skimpy, browning grass. “Anyway, I checked Chicago. He’s not there.”

            “And now we’re moving in with some not-evil-anymore genius as moral support.” Nat picked at the edges of her nails, which had depreciated in quality steadily since the update. “So you’ve given up on finding him.”

            “I haven’t. Believe me, Nat. I haven’t.” Feeling a tightening in his chest that was becoming all too familiar, Steve shrank against the tree. “Stark can find a cure. And I’m sorry, but I want _Bucky_ back, not whatever’s driving him around. When we have a cure, it’ll be easier to start looking again. In more than one way.”

            “You’re the boss,” she muttered, rubbing her eyes. “I’m too tired to argue anymore.”

            With a bang, the side door of the barn flew open, and Pietro came storming out, heading straight for Natasha with his eyes blazing. “If you _ever_ ,” he hissed, “force my sister to do something like this again, I swear—“

            “Save it,” she grumbled, not uncovering her eyes. “Is it clean?”

            “You had _no_ right to coerce her like that,” her brother spat, red-faced. “It takes so much out of her to read, and she already is sick—“

            “No one _forced_ her to say yes,” Nat replied with disinterest. “And you’re the one who told her we wanted a reading. I didn’t even get a chance to _ask_.”

            “You have no respect for her condition,” he growled.

            “You’re too possessive,” Nat snapped, looking him dead in the eye. “She’s not made of glass.”

            “ _You_ don’t tell us how to take care of each other.” Clenching his fists so hard his knuckles turned white, Pietro did his best to loom over her, bristling. “You don’t know what we’ve been through. You don’t _care_ —“ He slammed a fist into the bark, and Steve was on him in a second, dragging him back by the collar of his tattered shirt.

            Tossing Pietro aside like a rag doll, Steve placed himself deliberately between the boy and Natasha. Crossing his arms, the captain cocked an eyebrow. “You sure you wanna do that, son?”

            Grumbling what sounded like cusses in a language Steve didn’t recognize, Pietro struggled to his feet, yanking open the barn door and spitting into the dirt.

            “Call us when she’s done,” Natasha called, just before the door slammed behind him. Using the tree to help herself up, she brushed the dirt off her pants. She took a few steps down the path Clint and Darcy had taken and hesitated, fidgeting. With a huff, she turned around to face Steve again. “You know he told me everything, right?”

            “I thought you were too tired to fight,” Steve mumbled, sagging back against the tree near the bloody spot from Pietro’s knuckles.

            Nat didn’t respond to that. “ _Everything_ , Cap,” she stressed, raising her eyebrows. “About you two.”

            “So did I,” he told the scuffed dirt. “I don’t see what one drunk night—“

            “James said it was more than that.”

            “Well, ‘James’ was joking.” He’d never liked her calling Bucky by his first name. She’d never liked that Steve still called him predominantly by a nickname he’d gotten in Little League.

            “Do you know why you never met me until he transferred to Lackland?” she pressed, crossing her arms. “The two of you video-chatted every night he was deployed, but you didn’t even know my name til that night on base. Did you ever think about that?”

            Steve’s stomach twisted painfully. He stared longingly at the barn door, praying it would be opened by a twin armed with a distraction. No such luck. “What do you want me to say, Natasha?” he asked finally, refusing to look at her. “That we were a thing? That I loved him so much I had to transfer to Texas when he left me for deployment? That, God help me, I thought _I_ was gonna be his fiancé once he came to Lackland and it seemed like we just picked up where we left off—“ His voice broke, but he pushed through it. “—only to learn that while he was gone, he’d found someone he _could_ do long-distance with?” Swallowing something that might have been bile and might have been tears, Steve looked down at his hands. “I know I lost him a long time ago, Nat. I want the best shot I can have at getting him back, this time, and I need Stark for that.” His throat closed up in spite of itself, and he took a measured breath to loosen it.

            “And you think if you save him from his upgrade,” she pointed out dryly, “he’ll fall in love with you all over again.”

            Her words hit him like a slap in the face. Steve closed his eyes. “That’s not why. He’s still my best friend, Nat, no matter what kind of history we have.”

            “Bullshit.” She turned away.

            He frowned. “You honestly think I’m that petty?”

            “Pettiness is all that’s left now,” she snapped, whirling around. “Have you met a single person since the end of the world who _wasn’t_ looking out for themselves?”

            In that moment, Steve realized he had. “Actually,” he replied coolly, “I’ve met two.”

            “Y’know what, Captain?” she spat, hands on her hips. “Why don’t you fuck off back to Manhattan, and when you do find and rescue my fiancé—“ Working the thin, silvery engagement ring off her finger, Natasha threw it into a puddle. “Keep him.”

            Before he could interject, she was gone, disappearing down the path after Clint and Darcy. Meekly, Steve bent down, picked up the ring, and dusted it off. White-gold, with a diamond in a rose-shaped setting flanked by two pin-sized garnets, it was sleek and simple and probably more than he should have spent on a TI’s salary; uniquely beautiful and painstakingly chosen, so much so that the idea of anyone but Natasha wearing it was nothing short of outlandish. It looked like something Bucky would pick out, and it was the closest thing to him Steve would have until Stark’s cure was finished. Tucking the ring into the pocket of his jacket, Steve brushed off his hands and sat back against the tree to wait for Wanda’s verdict.


	8. Spiral

            Bringing tenants into the Tower was like flipping on a light switch. Steve had never seen Stark smile so much, even on TV. Not thirty-six hours after the small group of survivors had chosen their rooms, the inventor was even caught _humming_ as he puttered around his cluttered penthouse. Within another day, he’d actually showered, and legitimately considered the prospect of washing his collection of ratty sweatshirts. It was a huge weight off Rhodes’ shoulders, that much was palpable. And as surprised as he was to see such an improvement, Steve had to admit it was encouraging—with the newfound energy Stark was bringing into the lab, a breakthrough seemed almost assured.

            The reliable housing was having a positive effect on the gang, too. Clint swore sleeping in a real bed had given him an extra two inches of height back, and once Natasha had her first real shower since the upgrade, she’d relaxed enough to play cards with the Vision. Somewhere in between a nap and teaching the synthezoid to cheat at sheepshead, she’d even apologized for her conduct in the township.

            Not that, Steve reminded himself as he told her the same, she had anything to apologize for.

            He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t spending more time on the lower floors with his ramshackle team. It used to be the nausea-inducing speed of the elevators that kept him sequestered in the penthouse, but he’d discovered JARVIS was remarkably accommodating in regards to adjusting his descent, so it wasn’t really an acceptable excuse.

            And so, when Stark caught him shrinking away from the elevator doors yet again and asked, “Why aren’t you downstairs with your friends?”, he couldn’t come up with an answer. Luckily, Stark had a way of keeping himself entertained in a conversation regardless of the other party’s involvement.

            “Not that you’re not welcome up here, of course,” he amended quickly. Rolling up the sleeves of his Rolling Stones sweatshirt (one of three, actually), Stark stifled a yawn. “I just thought since people you actually like moved in, I’d have to beg you to come back up here.”

            “I’ve gone down to see them a few times,” Steve mumbled, trying to find some place to lean on the wall that wasn’t occupied by armour.

            “All right.” Stark shrugged. “Like I said, I’m not judging. You’re welcome to stay up here as long as you want to. Just don’t feel obligated. I can’t force you to stay—not that I would if I could.” Despite having opened up some, he’d been in isolation so long that he tended to talk himself into loops. “I mean I won’t. Whatever you want—“

            “Stark.” Steve cocked an eyebrow.

            The inventor took a deep, very deliberate breath. “I’m good. I got it.” After a second, he added, “And Tony’s fine.”

            “What?”

            “You don’t—uh. You don’t have to call me Stark.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I know I said something when we met—about it being _Dr,_ not _Mr_ , but that was…I don’t really care. I mean it’s not a respect thing. You’re a captain, but I’m not—I mean I’m—“ Rubbing his eyes, the inventor cursed and took another heavy breath. “Just…Tony. Is okay.”

            “Uh-huh.” Rolling his eyes, Steve pushed off the wall and stretched. “Have _you_ been down to the res floors yet? Met your tenants?”

            “Oh, no.” Wrinkling his nose, Stark shook his head. “They don’t want to see _me_. Just glad everyone moved in okay.” He yawned and padded into the kitchen, glancing back to make sure Steve was in pursuit. “It’s funny—I haven’t seen much of Vision since they moved in.” Shuffling over to the poor overworked coffeemaker, Stark emptied the last dregs of a two-quart bag of coffee into the filter and cracked open another. “I think it’s good for him to have other people around.” He filled the reservoir with water and took a mug from the towering pile in the sink to clean it. “You know, he’s just as socially-dependent as your traditional human, and it’s been a while since he had the kind of consistent, authentic—“

            “Didn’t you _just_ open a new thing of coffee?” Steve interrupted, frowning at the population of empty ones spilling out of the trash. “Like yesterday?”

            “Probably.” Stark didn’t look up. “I forget which ones are open. There are a lot of partial bags around here.”

            Steve watched him for a second. Despite being showered and shaved, Stark still looked the worst kind of hungover—which he probably was—and carried himself with the same weak, rag-doll-limb air as before. In fact, the only thing that had changed was his energy level, and Steve wondered now if that had more to do with performing, rather than improving. He got up abruptly, heading down the hall to the room from which bluish-light leaked into the hall. Stark ditched the coffee and scrambled after him, but before he could catch up, Steve pulled open the door to the lab—and sighed.

            “Don’t—!” the inventor panted, but it was futile.

            The study was an absolute disaster. All the windows were covered with blackout drapes duct-taped in place, plunging the room into pitch-darkness. The half-circle of huge, transparent monitors were lit up ice-blue, penetrating the darkness and casting eerie shadows off the piles of clothes littering the floor. On a long lab bench on the other end, a few three-dimensional displays in red and gold shed fainter light on an electron microscope the size of a studio apartment, as well as the absolute shambles of Tony’s life.

            Every surface that wasn’t technically a computer was cluttered with empty mugs and bottles. Clothes and towels were heaped in drifts all over the room, the tallest by the window almost the same size as Steve. Under the huge, 120-degree desk with its towering monitors, there was a cushion Steve recognized as missing from a living-room couch, topping off a dog-bed-style nest consisting of a dark blue fitted sheet, a moving blanket, and a plush fleece throw that had at some point been white.

            “Stark…” Steve wheeled around to face him. “You’ve been sleeping in here?”

            “Told you not to go in,” Stark muttered to himself, frowning at the floor. “Haven’t technically been sleeping…kind of a mess. I keep forgetting—should really clean off the microscope. It’s fine.”

            After a moment of trying and failing to catch his eye, Steve noticed a corner of the room lit with fluorescent lamps and sectioned off with shower curtains. Stark saw it around the same time.

            “Wait—“ Stark darted into his path to stop him from investigating, to no avail. Steve threw aside one of the curtains, revealing a kitchenette repurposed…somehow. The counter space was dominated by an apparatus of glass flasks and metal tubing, with a fat-bellied, boiler-looking object at the center. The whole area smelled like a hospital incinerator, and the doorless cupboards were stocked with bottles, all of which bore labels with illogically long names.

            For a second, they were both frozen. A drop of something that looked like water but was four hundred percent _not_ ran down a tub and plopped onto a burner, sizzling and exuding a scent like burning salsa-flavoured cotton candy.

            “What the hell is _this_?” Steve demanded, recoiling.

            “Rutaecarpine,” Stark answered immediately, dragging Steve away from the glassware with significant effort. He rummaged through a drawer in the kitchenette and produced a bag of something like yellowish powdered sugar. When Steve only stared at it as though it might attack him, Stark sighed. “It’s an alkaloid—an organic compound,” he corrected quickly. “It counteracts the effects of caffeine addiction and makes it easier to wean yourself off.” He tossed the bag aside. “I can only take in so much caffeine before I start developing a tolerance, and since I can’t exactly find any _other_ stimulants nowadays, so I’ve been alternating—a week or so on just coffee, a week or so on _less_ coffee and rutaecarpine…” he trailed off lamely, looking away.

            Steve held up an empty Blue Label bottle and cocked an eyebrow.

            “That, uh—“ Stark faltered, swallowing. “That helps me…sleep.”

            Handing him the bottle, Steve went over to the door and flipped on the lights.

            Stark winced, looking away from his mess of a lab. “Boy, does _that_ look worse than I thought it did.”

            While he stood there forlornly, Steve found a laundry basket that had been overturned to hold a tower of stained coffee mugs, put all the mugs inside it instead, and dropped it at Stark’s feet. “We’re gonna clean up this room,” he said, crossing his arms. “And you’re going to detox. That means _everything_ ,” he added, raising an eyebrow at the makeshift cyclization lab.

            The inventor blinked at him for a second, then laughed. “Okay, I’m confused—you _don’t_ want a cure anymore?”

            “I want a cure.” Steve took the bottle from his hand and dropped it into the hamper. “But you’re not gonna find one living like this. I thought having people around would help you, but it’s only superficial. You’re not gonna get your shit together on your own, so I’m gonna make you do it.”

            Drawing himself up, Stark scowled. “Just because I’m not going about it GI-standard doesn’t mean I won’t find it. If you need an excuse not to visit your friends, that’s fine, but I’m not really in the mood to be your project, _Captain_.”

            It was the most backbone Stark had showed since Steve had the misfortune to meet him, and it couldn’t have come at a less opportune time. He scowled back, shoving the basket into Stark’s hands. “I’m trying to be practical.”

            “You couldn’t be less _practical_ if you tried,” the inventor retorted. “You have a special interest, Cap, and it’s making you emotional.”

            “Well, y’know, I considered filling myself with homemade chemicals so I wouldn’t _have_ to confront my emotions, but you just do it _so_ much better,” Steve snapped.

            “I know what I’m doing,” Stark growled.

            “So do I.” Eyes boring into him, Steve gritted his teeth. “You’re killing yourself, Tony. And I’m not going to let you.”

            He snorted. “No, of course not. Not until I find your cure.”

            Steve crossed his arms. “Not ever.”

            The resulting silence was tenuous, paper-thin. A shrill, piercing _eeeep…eeeep…eeeep_ poked a hole in it, and they both started breathing again.

            “That’s my coffee,” Stark mumbled, tearing his eyes away from Steve to shuffle after the noise.

            “Enjoy it,” Steve told the lab, not moving. “You know that’s your last pot.”

            Mumbling something to the effect of “your _mom_ ’s last pot” to himself, Stark hefted the basket and retreated to the kitchen.


	9. Surprise

            Stark took a long, rattling breath. “I’m…dying.”

            “You’re not.” Steve rolled his eyes, grabbing another towel from the pile and folding it neatly into thirds. “Keep folding.”

            “This is it. I can feel it.” The inventor fell into a coughing fit, rolling over on the pile of warm laundry. “I think—my time—has come—“

            “Get up, Tony.” Setting the folded towel aside, Steve shoved him off the rest.

            “I see the light!”

            “Oh, do you?” Laughing in spite of himself, he helped Tony stand. “C’mon. Walk it off.”

            “Walk it _off_!” Pushing away from him indignantly, Tony sniffed. “I’m on my deathbed, and all you can say is ‘walk it off’?!”

            “I’ve never been good at funerals,” Steve admitted, biting back a grin and reaching for another towel. “Never know what to say.”

            “ _Un_ believable.” Tony flopped down into a heap on the floor, dragging the laundry pile on top of himself. “I’ve never done this many chores in my entire life.”

            “It’s good for you.” Digging in the pile, Steve shook out a fitted sheet and nudged the inventor with his foot. “Help me fold this.”

            Tony let out a groan, got up from the floor, and promptly recoiled in abject horror. “A _fitted_ sheet?”

            “Sure. You’ve got a couple doctorates, and I’ve been doing chores my whole life without my skin melting off.” Steve shrugged, laying the sheet out on the table. “I figure between the two of us, we can figure it out.”

            “Captain,” the inventor declared, crossing his arms, “I haven’t been able to sleep or shit in a week. I’ve scrubbed more dishes than the entire cast of _Annie_ in a Broadway run. I don’t think folding all the laundry in the Tower is going to get my creative juices flowing. I feel terrible.”

            “You felt terrible before,” Steve pointed out. “Only now, you’re not poisoning yourself, and this time, you’ll eventually feel better.”

            Stark made a face, dropping into a chair. “I have _seven_ doctorates.”

            “Yes, you do.” Rolling his eyes, Steve tossed him a clean MIT sweatshirt. “And two hands.”

            Begrudgingly, Stark started folding. “What do you think of parties?”

            Steve glanced at him, stacking folded towels on the sparklingly-clean lab bench. “Parties?”

            “Yeah, you know.” Stifling a yawn, Tony started a small pile of socks for later matching. “Gatherings of three or more people for the purpose of enjoyment, typically associated with the consumption of food and/or alcohol—do you like them?”

            “I—well, I used to.” Frowning, Steve leaned back against the lab bench, taking a break. “Lately I’m a little iffy on anything that makes too much noise.”

            “What about in a safe place?” Tony dug into the laundry again, barely recognizing his own clothes sans burns and vomit stains. “Like a heavily-guarded, fully-operational tower in a deserted city?”

            Smiling to himself, Steve loaded folded laundry into an empty basket. “Are you thinking of throwing a party, Stark?”     

            “Your friends deserve to have a little fun,” he proclaimed, tossing a pair of jeans to himself. “And I haven’t played host in a while.”

            Without looking up, Steve shrugged. “I think they’d like that.”

            Stark looked up at him curiously. “Would you?”

            He hesitated, straightening up. The inventor was watching him almost expectantly. Steve shifted a little, picking at the edge of the basket. “I mean…I would go. We could all use a night to relax.”

            “Would you _enjoy_ it, though, or would you just sit in the corner with a soda and wait ‘til it was acceptable for you to leave?” Tony cocked an eyebrow knowingly.

            With a sigh, Steve reached for another empty basket. “Throw the party, Tony. They’ll love it.”

            To a half-folded t-shirt, Stark pouted, mumbling, “That’s not what I asked.”

 

            “We were having a perfectly nice time,” Natasha grumbled, fighting with the knot of her blindfold. “Then Oz the short and alcoholic decides he has a ‘surprise’. If you’re lying, Cap,” she went on, raising her voice sharply, “the last thing I’m gonna do before I die or get assimilated is kick your ass.”

            “I’m _right_ here,” Steve said, tapping her shoulder and rolling his eyes. “And the surprise is good. Stark’s dramatic, not evil.”

            “I don’t like this!” Clint announced, wrestling with his own blindfold. “Why’s he gotta use these stupid things?”

            “Because as annoying as they are, walking you down a dark hallway would be needlessly intimidating,” the Vision replied, gently guiding him away from a wall. “And exposure to Stark’s flair for the dramatic is intimidation enough.”

            “Why is the hallway have to be dark?” Wanda piped up, clinging to her brother on one side and the synthezoid on the other. “He has electricity?”

            Stark poked his head into the hallway, propping open the double-doors to the abandoned R&D lab. “Not being sure how long I’m going to have to generate my own power, I try not to light up rooms that aren’t directly in use.”

            “Who’s that?” Darcy jumped backward into Sam’s chest, sending them both tripping into the wall. “Oops.”

            “Just me.” Tony helped set her upright and pressed a utility knife into her hand. “Go ahead and take those things off. I’m done setting up.” While they did, he touched a panel on the wall, and music began playing from virtually-invisible speakers. He’d disappeared that afternoon, leaving Steve with six baskets of laundry to put away, and in the time between then and sundown had transformed the lab from a monument to catastrophic scientific failure to a decluttered, almost comfortable event hall that just happened to be full of lab benches. All the equipment had been cleaned and stowed away, and the monitors turned to face up against the wall. Tablecloths covered the benches, and red-and-gold twinkle-lights were strung all along the hanging fluorescents. The far walls, which were both transparent monitors in and of themselves, displayed nothing but the skyline they actually looked out on, lit up as it had been before the update. The corner kitchen was bright and inviting, countertops full of snacks and an overstocked minibar. It was staffed by two apparatuses resembling robotic arms on tank treads, one of which was wearing a polka-dotted apron, and the other a floppy chef’s hat. The one in the hat waved a wooden spoon as they entered.

            “Our catering staff for the evening,” Stark announced, throwing his arms wide. “The one in the apron responds to ‘hey, You’, and the other one is Dum-E. As far from human-compatible as I could get, and _very_ early StarkTech,” he assured them. With a grin, he hopped up on the kitchen counter to sit. “Take a bow, boys.”

            You gave a slow dip of its three-fingered hand. Dum-E threw the wooden spoon at the wall.

            “I only use them as shop hands. Way too dumb for any kind of contamination.” Stark rolled his eyes. “And that has its own complications.”

            Natasha was the only one not to jump at the spoon outburst, still stuck on the twinkle-lights and food. She frowned, stepping forward. “What is this?”

            Stark flinched. “Welcome-to-the-neighborhood, sorry-about-the-apocalypse?” He produced a bottle from the minibar and offered it up as an olive branch. “With wine?”

            “I’ll take that,” Darcy murmured, easing past Nat to take it. You chirped, scooped up a corkscrew, and motored to her assistance.

            “Can you make an old-fashioned?” Clint tested, cocking an eyebrow.

            Tony exchanged a glance with his other robot arm and nodded. “Are you from New York?”

            “Iowa.”

            “Sure.” The inventor snapped his fingers at the hatted robot. “Dum-E, go get the brandy.”

            “Yeah, this’ll work.” Satisfied, Clint went to turn up the music.

            “We really appreciate you letting us stay here.” Sam came forward to shake the inventor’s hand. “Even if it doesn’t seem like it,” he added hastily, glancing back at the twins, who were deep in conversation in their native tongue, casting furtive looks at the spread. Or, at least, Pietro was—his sister seemed distracted, eyes drawn to the dead string of lights the Vision had floated up to resuscitate. Sam looked ruefully at Dum-E, who was trying desperately to get a bottle of brandy to stay upright, and sighed. “I don’t know if you know what it’s like out there—“

            “I don’t,” Tony admitted, looking away. “Sorry.”

            “Hey, man, it’s better if you don’t.” With a reassuring smile, Sam picked a bottle of water out of the minibar. “This really means a lot, that’s all. We’ll try not to tear up the place.”

            “By all means—make yourselves at home.” Tony seemed to shrink more and more the longer anyone looked at him directly. He didn’t relax until all his guests had retired to the couches by the window-screens.

            “Don’t you look nice,” Steve teased, leaning on the bar.

            Stark adjusted the shirt he was wearing, which had actual buttons and no apparent university affiliation, not looking up from his feet. “Thanks.”

            He frowned. “I thought you were excited for this.”

            “I am,” Tony said unconvincingly, sliding off the counter and taking custody of the brandy from Dum-E. The robotic arm trilled, adjusted its hat, and rolled back to a ready position against the wall. “I’m glad they like it. I don’t normally organize these things myself, but I think I did okay.”

            “It’s nice,” Steve promised. “Not too flashy, which is good. We’ve been eating canned everything for months—black-tie wouldn’t have gone over well.”

            “Mm.” Without looking up, Stark made a speedy old-fashioned and set it up on the counter, dinging a swizzle stick against the faucet. “Brandy old-fashioned, with extra love?”

            “ _Hell_ yeah.” Sliding off the back of the couch, Clint sprinted over to collect it. “You coming, Cap? I think Princeton found a karaoke game that won’t try and kill us.”

            “In a second.” Steve nodded him off. “Sign me up.”

            “Princeton?” Stark asked, cleaning off the cutting board.

            “Ah—the codenames.” Steve winced. “The global standard for surveillance posts is–“

            “Voice recognition with a first or last name for identity verification.” Tony nodded. “I designed the first one.”

            “Right.” Squirming, the captain looked out at the skyline. “They have a database. Who’s assimilated, who’s dead, and who’s neither. Surveillance cameras and mics now cross-reference any input they get with that database, and if they recognize anyone who’s not assimilated, it tips off the nearest Rover nest.” A chill ran down his spine. “We don’t run the risk of outing each other by using legal names. Actually, we avoid talking in metro areas altogether, but just in case—“ He pointed out each of his former team members in turn. “Falcon, Hawkeye, Black Widow—Bucky had a hand in all of those. Darcy went to Princeton, and we never let her live it down before the update.”

            “Well, killer robots are no reason to stop now.” Tony laughed. “What about them?” He nodded at the twins.

            “I—“ Steve laughed sheepishly. “I actually don’t know. They picked the twins up after I came back to the city.”

            “They don’t utilize codenames.” The Vision finished fixing the lights and dropped gently back onto the floor. “Pietro and Wanda are undocumented. Their names aren’t in any database. They may as well not exist, as far as the assimilated are concerned.”

            “Well, there you go,” Stark mumbled. He watched the gang on the couches, taking a deep, bracing breath, but made no move to join them. Steve opened his mouth to ask, but decided against it. The past week of chores was more human interaction than the inventor had had in months, and Steve still wasn’t sure exactly how fragile the update had made him. He was used to pushing, but with a cure on the line, he didn’t want Stark to break under any circumstances. So he let it be. After their cross-country trek, he was used to uncomfortable silence.

            “Dude, Twister.” Digging the game box out of a cupboard he had most certainly broken into, Clint held it up. “C’mon, Cap. I need at least two other asses to whoop, and it’s not fair if the robot plays.” He glanced at the Vision and wiggled the box.

            Steve rolled his eyes, pushing off the counter. “I’m coming.” Before he resigned himself to playing Twister with a former circus performer, he leaned across the bar to grab a soda and mutter in Tony’s ear. “If you tell them it wasn’t your update, they’ll believe you. We’re all in the same boat. Everyone wants to like you, Stark. Relax.”

            Tony hesitated, watching him go. Before he could convince himself otherwise, he slid off the counter, finished the scotch he’d hidden behind the bar, and made his way over to the couches, waving at the wallscreen. “Don’t play that game in the original Japanese, Princeton, or it actually _will_ kill you.”


	10. Sonder

            It was nearly three by the time the last survivor-turned-partygoer left (Clint, who stumbled off to bed spouting an astonishingly off-key, gloriously loud rendition of “Let’s Get It On”). Even though others before him (Sam) had been turned away, Steve was determined to stay and help clean up. He started without asking, clearing half the forest of empty glasses from the coffee table and taking them to the sink. Instead of heading him off, Stark brought the other half in on his heels.

            “I can’t believe,” Tony proclaimed to the slowly-filling sink, “that with three hundred acclaimed and accoladed researchers in and out of here every day for fifteen years, not _one_ of us thought of using beakers for cocktails.

            “I feel like some of them did,” Steve countered, scrubbing at congealed Cosmo. “But that’s not the kind of thing you share with your CEO.”

            “It just makes so much _sense_.” Shaking his head, Tony poured out the dregs of Darcy’s ninth (attempted) appletini. “With the graduations and sheer _volume_ …”

            “So you had fun?” Steve teased.

            “I did.” It was as much a realization for Tony as a declaration. “You’ve got a good group of people helping you through the apocalypse. I’ll give you that.”

            Smiling, Steve nodded. “They’re great. We’ve done pretty well for ourselves, considering.”

            Tony deflated, sinking onto the counter and staring at the dishes listlessly. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Considering.”

            Steve winced, setting a pair of highballs aside. “It’s okay, you know. No one blames you.”

            The inventor stared at him. “I ended the world, Cap. ‘It’ is the _definition_ of not okay.”

            “You didn’t do anyway,” Steve insisted. “You’ve said a thousand times, it was that hacker.”

            “Killian,” Tony mumbled, grimacing.

            “Exactly.” Leaning back against the counter island, Steve sighed. “You can’t blame yourself just because it’s your tech.”

            “The idea itself was a mistake,” Stark spat. “It should have ended with wearable tech. I just _had_ to raise the bar. Had to fuck with the biosystem. Had to—“ He swallowed. “You know the Geneva Convention outlawed biomedical weaponry—human augmentation—in 2029? That’s the only reason I was allowed to build the ‘bots in the first place. Even then, we were fighting the FDA and the CDC and even the goddamned UN at every turn. They were released without a viable method of extraction. That was _my_ call. _I_ sent them out on the unsuspecting public with no kill switch that didn’t actually _kill_ , and that’s why this happened—“ Tony’s voice broke, and he sank into a heap on the floor. “The only reason I’m searching for a cure now is because I _designed_ them to be incurable—to meet a deadline.” His jaw trembled, bile rising in his throat, and he buried his face in his knees.

            Steve let out his breath, watching him. “…That…makes a little more sense.”

            “Still glad they don’t all hate my guts, though,” Stark grumbled, fiddling with his hands. “I deserve it, but I probably couldn’t take it right now.”

            Trying to think of something sympathetic to say, Steve went back to the dishes, scrubbing in silence. Then he gave up and asked, “How’s your research coming?”

            “No cure yet.” Heaving himself up off the floor, Tony started drying glasses. “I’ve run—probably a thousand, by now—simulations, and the only thing that’s really effective is—well, in layman’s terms, a short-circuit.” He held a martini glass up to the light and frowned. “But that kills the host just under a hundred and ten percent of the time.”

            “Really?” Steve blinked, pouring soapy water out of a shotglass. “Every time?”

            “Not every single time, but it’s not a risk worth taking.” Swallowing, Tony stared at his dishrag. “Trust me.”

            “There’s no way you can get that percentage down, is there?” Steve cocked an eyebrow. “Because at this point, any risk under a hundred _is_ one worth taking. What have we got to lose?”

            Tony snorted, raising his eyebrows. “More than you think. Did Rhodey tell you about Pepper?”

            Sucking in a breath, Steve nodded. “He mentioned. I don’t know details. Just that she was one of your first losses.”

            Closing his eyes, Tony nodded slowly. “Lost her to an earpiece she had implanted for her work at SI. I thought it was new enough, smart enough that it would come out clean. Tried hitting the surgical eject—“ Letting out a shuddering breath, he shook his head. “It shorted. The implant decided to fry her on its way out—“ He choked, fighting something in his throat. “—dropped her in less than a minute.”

            Steve bit his lip. “I’m sorry.”

            “It happens,” Stark muttered, staring at the counter. “It keeps happening. Since before SI fell apart. I can’t believe it still gets me like that.”

            “The fact it does is a good sign, right?” Steve offered, somewhat timidly. “It’s not like the update has become everyday yet. We’re all still refusing to accept it.”

            “Yeah.” Limply, Tony poked at the dishrag. “For now.”

            “Aren’t you cheerful.”

            He groaned, burying his face in his hands. “I feel like shit.”

            “C’mon.” Setting the last lowball on the rack to dry, Steve nudged him. “You’re tired. It’s kind of like being drunk, but better for your liver, and easier to fix. Quit dwelling on the misery of existence and go to bed.”

            “Mmh.” Batting him away, Tony huffed into the counter. “Are you coming up tonight, or are you finally going to stay down here with your friends?”

            “Haven’t decided.” Dragging him away from the kitchen, Steve pointed him toward the hallway. “ _I’m_ not dead on my feet, yet.”

            “No, but if you are—“ Dropping onto one of the couches instead, Tony stretched. “You can bet it’ll be my tech driving you around.”

            “Will you _stop_?” Steve snapped, maybe a little harsher than he’d intended. “I don’t know what else you want from me, Stark, but I’m sick of cleaning up after your pity parties. It’s not funny, it’s not cute—it’s just pathetic. You _know_ you’re not allowed to give up. Especially now that you have us here holding you accountable.” He crossed his arms, squaring his shoulders. “You don’t get to take your nihilistic phase now. There are people to save. There’s shit to _do_. I’ve done everything I can to make it easier on you, Tony, but _eventually_ , you’re going to have to do some work yourself.”

            Tony covered his face with a cushion. “Great pep talk. No wonder the military loved you so much.”

            “Stark—“

            “ _Don’t_ give me that.” Peeking out from behind the pillow, Tony scowled. “You can’t try to buddy up one minute, then start barking orders when I stop doing what you want.”

            “What _I_ want?!” Bracing himself against the couch, Steve leaned down and snatched the pillow away. “I’m not just doing this because I get off on giving orders, Tony. This is—“

            “I _KNOW!_ ” Stark roared, sitting bolt upright so they were nearly nose-to-nose. “I _know_ what’s at stake! Of _course_ I know! I’m the one who’s been trying to drink myself to death because of it! You don’t have to _tell_ me how serious this is every twelve seconds. I’m _sorry_ that I’m not working myself to the bone to save your ex, but I’m a little more concerned with efficacy than I am with speed. The world’s not getting any deader, Steve,” he went on, raising his voice. “And while _you_ might sleep okay with more casualties on my head, _I_ have a hard enough time as it is. If you want to make yourself useful, I suggest sucking it up, getting off my ass, and going back to _looking_ for Binky, rather than taking your frustrations out on me.” Bristling, he stared Steve down, a kind of desperate fire in his eyes.

            “I don’t want casualties any more than you do,” Steve growled, refusing to back down. “But if Bucky dies, or we can’t get him back because _you_ waited too long—“ He cracked his knuckles, one-handed, to punctuate. “I _will_ make an exception.”

            “Killing me won’t bring him back,” Stark retorted coolly.

            “And pussying out won’t erase what you did to your assistant,” Steve hissed. “But apparently, it makes you feel better.”

            They held like that, glaring daggers at each other. Tony didn’t even blink, and Steve was fiercely fighting the urge to pile-drive him into the coffee table and break his smug face against the tile. When it was clear neither one of them had any intention of breaking first, Steve gritted his teeth and spat, “You’re the most childish, most infuriating, stubbornnest sonuvabitch I’ve ever had the displeasure to know.”

            Tony blinked, then snorted. “I know you are, but what am I?”

            “ _God—_ “ Pushing away from the couch, Steve buried his face in his hands. “Just—“ Dropping his shoulders, he fell back against the kitchen island. “Just go to bed, Tony. I’ll get my stuff tomorrow.”

            “You’ll—“ The inventor paused, halfway off the sofa. “Your stuff?”

            “Yes.” Tiredly, Steve took the last water bottle from the minibar. “You win. I’m moving down here with my team. Out of your hair.”

            “Oh.” After a moment, Stark stood up, brushing himself off and avoiding Steve’s eyes. “Took you long enough.” With a slow, perplexed look at the remains of the party, he gave a nod and started out to the hallway. “G’night, then, Captain.”

            “Good night, Dr Stark.”

            The doors slid shut behind him, and JARVIS’ blue-white lights blinked on in the opposite hallway, lighting a path through the early-morning darkness. “ _There is a room ready for you, Captain. Adjacent to Airman Wilson’s,”_ the AI chimed in.

            “That’s okay, JARVIS,” he mumbled, falling onto the recently-vacated couch. “I think I’ll just be here for tonight.”

            “ _As you wish, Captain_.” The lights in the hall went out, another clicking on over a cabinet on the opposite wall. “ _Linens are in this cupboard, should you need them.”_

            “Mm-hmm.” Already half-asleep, Steve yawned and rolled onto on side. “Thanks, J.”

            “ _My pleasure, Captain. Good night._ ”


	11. Separation

             Steve moved all his meager belongings down to the residential floor before Tony woke up—likely before he even went to bed from the night before. Clint was awake to give him a hand, but elected to watch him lug his duffel bag and overstuffed backpack into the spare room while throwing together some horrible egg-and-ketchup monstrosity in the kitchenette instead. When Steve returned from the mostly-symbolic exercise of putting all three of his shirts on hangers, Clint scraped the orangey goop onto a plate and offered up the skillet. “Want one?”

             “I’m good.” Dropping onto a barstool, Steve cracked open a bottled water and stared at it. “When everyone else gets up, we should discuss our next move.”

             “Next move?” Clint frowned, setting the egg plate by Darcy’s door and knocking before returning to make an even worse one for himself. “Like do we wanna play a chess or Catan tournament today? Because the robot’s way too good at chess.”

             “Not what I meant.” Steve took a long drink of water. “We can’t stay here forever.”

             “‘Course not.” Wiping egg spots off his 2044 Olympics sweatshirt, Clint squirted hot sauce into the pan. “Once Stark finds a cure, we’re all gonna go back to our apartments and our renter’s insurance will pay out a fortune.”

             “He’s not looking for a cure.” Steve scowled at the tasteful reddish granite of the countertop. “He’s given up.”

             “I thought you said us being here helped with that.” Clint cocked an eyebrow.

             “I thought it would.” Steve shook his head, taking another long pull of water. “I’ve been wrong before. Remember Bucky’s arm?” Sourly, he threw the empty bottle away, burying his face in his hands. “‘Cause I remember saying it ‘wasn’t going to be a problem’ right before it tried to strangle me.”

             “Aw, c’mon. It was the _night_ before.” Flipping what passed for an omelet high in the air, the former Olympic archer caught it flawlessly in the pan. “And you can’t keep beating yourself up over that. You’re no better than Stark.”

             “Thanks, Barton.”

             “I mean it.” Dropping two slices of bread into an old toaster, he dumped the egg onto a plate and shoved it in front of Steve. “Both of you are moping about feeling personally responsible for something you had no way of stopping.”

             “The whole _world_ blames Stark for the update,” Steve pointed out dryly.

             Clint scoffed. “And Nat blames you for losing Buck to it. People place blame, Cap. And bad shit happens. Sometimes you can’t save the world. Sometimes you can’t even save one person. Sometimes you try for something great and you accidentally shoot your coach in the scapula because that whole Robin-Hood-split-arrow thing isn’t humanly possible.” He shrugged. “All I know is whining about it never fixed anything. Stark’s got his reasons for obsessing and you got yours. But you’re not gonna get anything done until you get over ‘em and focus on saving the world instead of changing it.”

             “I already lost Bucky once,” Steve muttered. “Twice, I guess, if you count breaking up. I don’t wanna make it worse by volunteering him as Stark’s guinea pig.”

             “He’d probably prefer it to the first mess you got him into.” Steve promptly looked devastated, and Clint backtracked hastily, freeing the toast from the toaster with a chopstick. “Kidding! I’m kidding. You know Barnes wouldn’t blame you for any of this.”

             Steve winced. “No, I don’t…”

             “Aw, c’mon—”

             “No, Clint—” He sighed. “The night before Knoxville, when we stayed in that farmhouse, Bucky and I…” Steve swallowed, taking a bite of garbage eggs to avoid it.

             “Oh.” Clint’s eyes widened. “ _Oh._ ” In spite of himself, he snorted a laugh. “Does Nat know?”

             “She knew right away,” Steve mumbled miserably. “Bucky didn’t go back to their room that night. That’s why she sent him into town with us that day and why he...Why we lost him,” he finished miserably.

             “Well…” Clint frowned. “You don’t know that’s why he turned. Being around other magnetic fields makes tech more _likely_ to turn, but it’s a crap shoot.”

             Steve didn’t answer, punishing himself with more vile eggs. After a while, Clint gave up, leaving him to sulk in the kitchen and wandering off to shower. Having been without reliable running water or heat for some months, they were all taking advantage of the Tower’s facilities to chip away layers of accumulated bodily grime. Steve’s hair was even starting to look blonde again, instead of a permanent, tired, dishwater-grey.

             Though the eggs tasted like a rotten pepper stuffed with rock salt, Steve had never been one to waste food, and even so, compared to Army food, they were only the tenth- or eleventh-worst thing he’d ever tasted. He scraped the plate clean, rode out a few involuntary gags, and shuffled off to track down a certain room.

             On the way to the actual residence part of the residence floors, he’d seen what appeared to be exercise equipment through the transparent glass walls Stark was so inexplicable fond of. Eight to ten hours of walking with a few hundred pounds of supplies had all but replaced the daily physical training he was used to at Lackland, but only in spirit. If ever Steve needed to run or do push-ups until he saw spots, it was now—he was wound tighter than a nun’s twat, and it would’ve done him some good to sweat from something other than fear and anxiety. On the road, there were always more pressing matters, but now was the perfect time to ignore anything or anyone he might feel obligated to and shadow-box til he passed out. Unfortunately, when he did track down the exercise room, the sliding door refused to budge.

             The intercom pad by the door lit up ice-blue. “ _Good evening, Captain_.”

             “Morning,” he muttered, trying to get a grip on the edge of the door.

             “ _I’m afraid the fitness center is inoperable at the moment,”_ the disembodied voice said apologetically. “ _Mr Stark never uses it himself and he has diverted power from all nonessential structures in the Tower. Would you like me to request he reopen it_?”

             “No,” Steve said quickly. “Don’t bother him. God knows he’d fall into another shame spiral over closing it in the first place.”

             “ _Mr Stark can indeed be volatile,_ ” JARVIS agreed. “ _Perhaps if I refrained from telling him the request was yours—_ “

             “No. Thank you, J.” With a sigh, he headed back to the suites. This time, Sam was occupying the kitchen, covering all four burners of the stove with pots and pans that smelled infinitely better than Clint’s attempt at eggs. When Steve sank onto the couch he’d spent the night on, weakly considering folding up the blankets, Sam was turning something golden-brown with a frying pan.

             “Cajun shrimp,” he tossed over his shoulder, uncovering a pot to sniff its contents.

             Steve only grunted a response, which Sam didn’t take as a deterrent.

             “Red beans and rice, too,” he added, stirring the pot. “Not a family dinner without red beans and rice.”

             “I thought you were from Harlem,” Steve grumbled, closing his eyes.

             “I am, but Mom grew up in New Orleans. Spent summers there.” Shaking more cayenne into the sizzling shrimps, Sam snorted. “Pretty sure I’ve told you that like a thousand times.”

             “Sorry.” Sighing, Steve burrowed into his rumpled blanket nest. “What’s the occasion for a family dinner?”

             “Me having a kitchen and the stuff to cook one with.” Plucking a hot shrimp from the oil, Sam clipped off a bit of it with a paring knife and brought it over to him on a napkin. “Try that. Too spicy?”

             It exploded into needle-pricks and hot shrimp-juice when he bit into it, so he nodded. “Just a little.”

             “Good.” Returning to the stove, Sam added another handful of multicolored peppers. “We’ve been eating bland-ass canned corn and boiled everything for too damn long. I want this spicy enough to put y’all in comas.”

             From the whiff he caught when the heating kicked on, Steve saw a strong possibility of that happening. Shaking off his malaise, he forced himself to get up and wander into the kitchen. “Do you need any help?”

             “Actually, yeah.” Stepping away from the stove, Sam wiped his hands on a towel and stuck a spoon and a bowl of corn and other things into his hands. “If you wanna make up the corn puppies so it all comes out hot, that’d be great.”

             Steve nodded and got to stirring, yawning in spite of himself.

             Sam noticed. After a moment of tending to his shrimps, he said, “They say depression’s contagious, y’know.”

             “Hm?”

             “You’ve been spending all your time upstairs with a guy who feels responsible for ending the world.” He shrugged, tipping the shrimp and oil into a strainer. “Seems like he’s dragging you down with him.”

             Steve frowned. “What makes you say that?”

             “This is the first time I’ve heard you bring up Knoxville since…well, Knoxville,” Sam replied simply, setting the crispy shrimps on a towel to drain more.

             “Blame Nat for that, not Stark,” he mumbled, poking the corn batter listlessly. “You don’t know what she’s like about it when the rest of you aren’t around.”  
             “Yeah? Because when _you’re_ not around, she can barely keep it together,” Sam retorted with a little more fire than expected. “Do you know how scary it is to see Natasha cry, man? It’s like those dogs that get abandoned in parking lots and won’t leave because they think their family’s still coming back. Pretty much the most horrible and heartbreaking thing ever.”

             Steve didn’t answer, retreating into scooping out corn puppies into egg wash. Sam didn’t like that. “Seriously, Cap. It’s like seeing Catherine the Great fall off a horse. Just—“

             “I get it.”

             “Yeah.” Appeased, Sam went back to chopping andouille for his rice. “Well, I know I’m not the first to tell you this, but you need to realize you’re not the only one who took a hit in Tennessee. I mean, they were _engaged_.” Shaking his head, he rinsed off the cleaver. “She was thinking about having a _future_ with him. Man, she didn’t just lose Barnes, she lost the kids, the dog, the house in the suburbs—“

             “They’d never move to the suburbs,” Steve muttered.

             “Just think about it, Cap. That’s all.” Sprinkling sugar into another pot of hot oil, Sam came over to retrieve the corn puppies. “I mean, what would Barnes say if he saw you moping like this?”

             Steve had Bucky’s commentary running through his head for more often than he would have liked to admit. Painfully, he smiled. “That I sound like Stark. Who he’d hate, because he’d take one look at that penthouse and tell Stark the Yankees could go fuck themselves before he told him his name.”

             Sam laughed. “Yeah, those two wouldn’t get along.”

             Steve had to agree. Bucky had something of a chip on his shoulder when it came to Manhattan and people who could afford to live there—growing up in his dead father’s hand-me-downs on the other side of the river had left him with that much. And Tony didn’t exactly, nor had he ever, make an effort not to take his outrageous privilege for granted. That much was obvious. What was more puzzling was how the thought of them clashing made his stomach sour. He tried to shake the feeling while he set the table, but couldn’t. It was something beyond worrying Tony wouldn’t follow through on the cure. Steve couldn’t help but feel Bucky would disapprove of the time he’d been spending with the inventor on principle.

             It lasted longer than it should have, the icky feeling. But when Sam banged the frying pan on the wall and hollered in lieu of dinner bell, and everyone else came trickling in, it went away. Something about Darcy loudly singing the praises of all the club jams she’d rediscovered, Clint covering his corn puppies in an obscene amount of ketchup, and Natasha actually genuinely smiling for once put it out of his mind, and he was able to burn away his tastebuds with mounds of shrimp in peace.


	12. Settlement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am a bad noodle but it's up and there's more to come

             “Fourteen, corner pocket—“

             _Thk._

             Sam groaned, crumpling up his last twenty-dollar bill and throwing it onto the pool table. “I’m done. That’s it.”

             “Aw, c’mon. Betcha I can’t make the next one blindfolded.” Clint grinned, stuffing his pockets with other people’s money, the pool cue resting in his armpit.

             “Give it up, Clint.” Steve rolled his eyes, pulling a blanket over the sleeping twins piled up on the couch. “No one has any money left. When the economy comes back to life, we’re all screwed.”

             “Play for somethin’ else.” Chalking the cue, Clint bounced around the table lining up shots. “Call a shot, and if I make it, you have to take the leftovers up to Stark.”

             Steve snorted. “Not taking that risk.”

             “C’mon. If I don’t make it, I’ll do it.”

             He shook his head. “That’s not a fair trade. You don’t care if you have to go up there or not.”

             “Why do you?” Nat muttered over the dishes, cocking an eyebrow. Steve ignored her.

             “Okay, uh…” Clint stood back from the table, looking around the room. “I’ll do everyone’s laundry? Including sheets.”

             Steve nodded approvingly. “For two weeks.”

             “Jesus, what, did he kill your dog?” Clint shook his head. “No way.”

             Steve frowned.

             “…okay fine. Two rounds of everyone’s laundry, including sheets.” He rolled his eyes. “Call the shot.”

 

             Steve dragged his feet as much as he could, both physically and figuratively, on the way to the elevator, and still only bought himself an extra five minutes. He had JARVIS slow the elevator to a crawl to steel himself, hanging on to the stack of Tupperware with white knuckles, and only opened his eyes once he stepped out into the penthouse. The armours glowing in the entryway didn’t make his skin crawl as much as they once had, especially with the penthouse fully-lit. He wandered into the living room, setting the leftovers on the wet bar, which he was glad to see gathering dust. “Stark?”

             The penthouse was quiet. Not eerily so, just settled. The sun was starting to set on the dark skyline outside, but rather than casting crawling shadows through the huge windows, the lamps and overheads were glowing softly to counter the encroaching darkness. There was even dancy ambient music playing over the sprawling network of speakers, rather than the muffled thrashing stuff normally thumping from Tony’s workshop. Leaving the food behind, Steve peeked down the side hallway, and found the workshop door wide open, the bright blue monitors lit up inside. Upon inspection, he found them both cluttered with lines and lines of miniscule white test in a combination of letters and symbols Steve recognized as code but couldn’t hope to decipher. The monitors were usually covered in stacks and stacks of code, but always with Xs through huge chunks, or an angry, bolded-red line at the bottom. This time, they were uninterrupted, some chunks glowing bright green. Steve had to assume that was good, but the only one who could say for sure was asleep in his desk chair, drooling onto the sleeve of his last clean sweatshirt.

             Relieved, Steve leaned as far into the room as he could without stepping over the threshold, setting the stack of leftovers on the very edge of the wraparound desk. He turned to go and was almost to the entryway when he heard a yawning, mildly hurt “Thanks.”

             “Don’t mention it,” he called back, rooted to the spot but not turning around. “Do you, uh—need anything else?”

             Tony shuffled past him to the wet bar and made a seltzer. “Since you asked—“

             Steve actively regretted doing so.

             “—normally, I’d have Pepper call a conferred, but…” He forced a laugh. “Maybe I’ll just follow you downstairs instead.”

             “Got something to share with the class?” Steve asked, keeping his eyes fixed forward on the elevator doors.

             “As a matter of fact, yes.” Taking a sip of vaguely lime-flavoured carbon dioxide, Tony grimaced. “Pretty sure I got it.”

             “’It’ like—“ Steve stared at him in disbelief. “Like a _cure_ ‘it’?”

             “Not _like_ a cure. A hunk of code that resets all wearable or biointegrative tech to factory standard, plus an infiltration block.” Tony smiled. It was tired and pitiful, without a hint of being proud of himself that wasn’t drowned in the overwhelming relief of the thing. Steve almost allowed himself one, too, but Tony just _had_ to go on:

             “Now all we have to do is test it.”

             He frowned. “Test it?”

             “Well, test it, fix it, repeat til it’s perfect, find your friend, fix him, then mass-produce and fix everyone else, but the immediate next step it…” Tony counted off on his fingers, then shrugged. “Yeah, test it.”

             “Does that mean…” Steve looked out the wide windows at the dark city beyond. “That means we have to catch one.”

             “At least one.” Tony nodded. “Vision can do it, if you guys can help him find a nest.”

             “We’ve mapped every nest we hit between Texas and Franklin.” Steve winced. “I don’t know any in New York.”

             “What about that girl you found?” Reluctantly, Tony started on another seltzer. “Doesn’t she have a ‘sense’ for them or something?”

             “Allegedly, but—“ Steve cocked an eyebrow. “What, you believe her?”

             “Don’t you?”

             “Sure, but only because I’ve seen her do—something, I guess.” He snorted. “I thought you’d be at least skeptical. Being a man of science and all.”

             Tony rolled his eyes, coming around the bar to flop down on the couch. “Humans are a versatile species. Weird adaptations to combat and dominate our environments are kind of our thing. A real scientist doesn’t get upset when confronted by something they don’t understand. Nothing can exist without a logical explanation—if you don’t understand something, it just means your application of logic is flawed, not the existence of the thing. Therefore, everything you don’t understand is a step closer to understanding the actual logic of the universe once you _do_ understand it. Science isn’t a set of rules things have to follow—it’s a map of the rules they _do_ follow. Everything unexplainable thing teaches us another rule or part of a rule once it explains itself.” He drained his glass and set it aside. “The scientific community tends to see unexplainable things as threats, rather than opportunities, which is a shame, because at the most basic level, science is just like art.” He smiled, all kid-with-his-first-chemistry-set this time. “Once you know the rules, you get to change them, and that’s where it gets _really_ fun.”

             Steve took a long look at him, and then, though he did absolutely everything in his power not to, he laughed.

             Tony pouted. “Hey.”

             “I’m sorry—“ He tried to stop, but it kept coming. “Really—“

             The inventor crossed his arms. “That was a _great_ speech, Rogers.”

             “I know—I know—“ Wiping away a tear, Steve cornered his mouth with a fist. “I’m so sorry—“

             “Like, TED-talk worthy.”

             “I know—“

             “People would share that shit like wildfire if social media was still a thing and everyone wasn’t dead—“

             “I’m sorry—“ Catching himself, Steve heaved a huge sigh and grinned sheepishly. “You just…Jesus, Stark, you could at least _try_ not to sound like a mad scientist.”

             Tony gave him an indignant look that just set him off again. Throwing up his hand, the inventor got up to leave.

             “No—wait—I’m sorry—“ Steve sat next to him on the couch, shaking his head to clear it. “I know you’ve been isolated a while. I shouldn’t tease.”

             “No, you shouldn’t.”

             He sighed. “I know. I’m sorry.”

             “I’ve been stuck up here for _years_ , Captain.”

             “I know—“

             “That is _far_ from the weirdest thought I’ve had—“

             “Tony!” Laying a hand on his shoulder to stop him, Steve bit back another chuckle. “I get it.”

             Tony froze, every muscle abruptly tensing, and Steve instantly regretted touching him. For a moment, he’d forgotten that this new world didn’t have simple things like casual touch. That aside from dragging out of harm’s way, touch post-nano-disaster was usually an attack and either way meant danger. He’d even forgotten how much his own heart raced when he so much as brushed elbow with a teammate in the hall or on the run.

             He pulled his hand back at lightspeed. “I’m sorry, Tony—“

             Tony let out a breath he’d been holding and shook his head. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

             “No, I—“

             “It’s fine, Captain.”

             Steve’s heart sank, and he got up to hide it, brushing himself off. “Want me to go round everyone up? Or at least Wanda and her brother?”

             “If you want. Otherwise I can have JARVIS and Vision do it.” Tony shrugged, but the nonchalance was forced.

             “I’ll just go,” Steve mumbled, trudging toward the door to kick himself in the elevator.

             “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” Tony piped up before he got too far.

             Steve frowned, turning back. “Hm?”

             “Before. About—“ He sighed. “I’ve been wallowing. It’s why it took me so long to nail this thing down, and I shouldn’t have lashed out at you for trying to pull me out. I—“ He took a deep breath. “I should have listened to you.”

             Steve gave him a small smile. “In your defense,” he offered, “so should a lot of people.”

             “Here.” Scraping himself up off the couch, Tony nodded toward the workshop. “V can bring everyone upstairs. Lemme show you what I got.”

             “I’m not gonna know what I’m looking at,” Steve pointed out.

             “Another cardinal rule of science!” Tony declared, pointing him toward the workshop. “If you can’t explain it to a kindergartner, you don’t truly understand it. Einstein. Or, in this case, an Army captain with—“ He glanced back at Steve. “A college degree?”

             “Art school,” Steve confirmed.

             “The facsimile of a college degree.” Tony nodded. “Which I think Albie would agree is good enough for live theatre, so to speak.”

             “It’s ‘good enough for community theatre’,” Steve corrected, raising an eyebrow. “The implication being it’s not Broadway-quality, but it serves the purpose.”

             “Thank God you went to art school,” Tony replied, halfway to the workshop, “I’ve been using that wrong my whole life.”

             “My degree’s in drawing and painting.”

             Tony stepped into the doorway of the workshop, turning back to study him. “You are just full of surprises, Captain.”

**Author's Note:**

> Consider this an apology present for not posting in forever and a half. I can't decide if I'm going to finish it or not, so if you like it, please comment! Thanks!  
> Update: I HAVE decided to see this one through. My updates may be a little inconsistent because I am shuffling this one and Mesa with working through the second part of my Animas series, but if you like it, please stay with me! I promise there is an end in sight.


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